


The Quest For The Cores

by MissDragon42



Series: The Cores of Voltron [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Definitely some Hamilton references tho, Original Character(s), a fanfic I'm part of that I'm posting for a friend who doesn't have an account
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2018-12-07 04:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 36,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11616240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDragon42/pseuds/MissDragon42
Summary: After saving Balmera, the Paladins of Voltron find that their respective lions aren't working properly, which is a big problem.Please keep in mind the majority of this was created before season three came out





	1. A Paladin’s Power

Being defenders of the universe, the paladins rarely got any free time, and when they weren’t defeating the Galra empire they were training. Whenever they weren’t training, something would usually go wrong, so their breaks were always short. This time it was different, though technically it wasn’t a break. Allura and Coran were gathering supplies for the next trip to the nearest planet, and since the Alteans were still gone and they finished their training for the day, the paladins were finally able to relax for once. Pidge fiddled with tech as she usually did, Hunk experimented in the kitchen which always ended well, Shiro lifted weights, and Keith sat in his room doing whatever he did in there. Everyone had something to do, everyone except Lance.

The blue paladin was laying on the couch, gazing at the ceiling in a bored daze; he wished he had something to do. The last time he was this bored was when Mamá grounded and confined him to his room, though it wasn’t like he was bored for long since his younger siblings and cousins decided to dog-pile him. Lance pushed the memories aside before the feelings of homesickness would overwhelm him. Now he really wished he had something to do, but luckily the doors slid open and Lance sat up to find Keith entering the room. 

He smirked, getting up from where he sat and walked toward the red paladin. “Look who decided to come out of his emo corner.”

“Shut up Lance.” Keith muttered in reply, arms crossing as they often did, a habit that would never be broken.

“Hey, you’re bored, I’m bored. So how about we race?”

“What?”

“Y’know, a race?” Lance said with a gleam in his eye. “We fly our lions and see who’s faster.”

Keith arched his eyebrow. “Allura said the Red Lion was the fastest.”

“Allura probably said that just to make you feel special. I don’t believe for a second that your lion is faster than mine. So we’re racing, mullet. Unless you’re scared of losing?”

The red paladin smirked. “You’re on!”

It took less than ten minutes later the two paladins were outside the castle in their lions, raring and ready to go. Lance was determined to win, and he was prepared to use maybe a little bit of cheating to win, but not so much that it was noticeable.

“Alright, first one to fly around that mountain and back wins.” Keith said, pointing at the peak far in the horizon.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Ready, set GO!”

The lions launched themselves in the air and flew towards the mountain at full speed, and at first they were neck and neck, but as they got closer to their destination the red lion slowly started to pull ahead. By the time they circled around the mountain Keith was in front of Lance, the red lion’s tail waving back and forth inches in from of the other lion’s muzzle. Crap, Keith’s gonna win at this rate! Lance thought, worrying for a second before he got an idea. The paladin smirked mischievously as he pressed a button on his dashboard, and aimed for the red lion's tail, pushing the throttle all the way up. Blue opened it’s jaws and icy particles began to form in front of the cannon in its mouth, and soon a small beam of ice shot out of his mouth and hit it’s target.

YES! Lance thought victoriously, but his smile faded once he saw that there in wasn’t a huge chunk of ice weighing down Red’s tail like he intended. The blast did nothing, the only damage it did was form a thick layer of frost on it’s tail tip. As the race ended, Keith landed at the finish a second before Lance did.

“Yes! I win!” He cheered.

“I...I think there’s something wrong with my lion.”

“Don’t make up excuses for losing.”

“Keith I’m serious.”

There was a brief pause, before Lance heard the red paladin sigh over the comms.“Okay, what’s wrong?”

“Well, during the race I thought I’d even the odds by freezing your tail-”

“That’s cheating!” Keith interrupted.  
“Whatever. Anyways, I tried doing that but it didn’t work.”

“Maybe your lion didn’t like the fact that you were cheating.”

“I’m being serious! I’m really worried, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“Well what do you expect me to do about it?”

“I don’t know, something!” Lance said while frantically waving his hands in the air. “Try using your fire breath! Maybe there’s something wrong with your lion too!”

“Lance, if this is a joke…” 

“It’s not.”

Lance could hear an exasperated sigh over the comms before seeing Red open it’s mouth. A glowing ball the color of magma began to form between its jaws, it grew in size and immense heat radiated off of it, and then the orb of fire disappeared, and a shower of sparks and weak flames sputtered from the lion’s mouth before quickly dying out.

“What the quiznak is going on?!” Lance cried, “First my lion can’t shoot ice, and now yours can’t breathe fire!”

“This is bad.” Keith murmured with worry.

“No shit Sherlock!”

“Paladins.” Allura’s voice rang through the comms. “What’s happening? Are you alright?”

“Allura,” Keith said. “We may have a situation...”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So wait, both of your lions aren’t working?” Hunk asked; everyone had all gathered at the bridge to discuss the malfunctions of Red and Blue.

“Yeah.” Lance said, crossing his arms. “Well, some- actually, most of the stuff still work, it’s just Blue’s ice beam that’s broken.”

“Same here.” Keith added.

“I did a scan on your lions,” Pidge said while typing away at her laptop. “None of the wires or machinery are seems damaged. Nothing’s broken.”

“Well check again! There’s something wrong with our lions!”

“Calm down Keith,” Shiro said while placing his hand on the red paladin’s shoulder in an almost brotherly way. “Princess, do you have any explanation for this?”

Allura stroked her chin, deep in thought. “Hmm...you’re sure everything else is operational, Pidge?”

“Positive.” the green paladin confirmed. “I checked everything twice. Everything should be working.”

“Wait a tick,” Coran piped up as the gears in his mind began to turn. “You said that everything but the fire and ice breath is functional, right?”

“That’s what we’ve been telling you.” Lance said, he had a feeling that the elder Altean had an idea, and he had no clue whether he should be scared of that.

Coran fiddled with his mustache as he thought outloud. “So the things that aren’t working have something to do with the red and blue lion’s elements. Which means…”

The two Alteans turned to each other, their eyes lit up simultaneously. “The cores!!” 

“Of course! How could we have forgotten?!” Allura exclaimed.

“Uh, what are cores?” Hunk asked in confusion.

“And what do they have to do with our lions?” Keith added.

“Allow me to explain.” Coran piped up, he cleared his throat before speaking again. “Voltron isn’t just made up of technology, it has magic too. It’s how they’re able to bond with their paladins. Each lion has a certain amount of abilities. Some have been built into the mechanics, such as the lasers and force fields. Others require magical energy in order to activate them, like the elemental blasts.”

“The cores are what give the magical energy to the lions.” Allura added. “In other words, a paladin’s power alone isn’t enough to reach the full potential of Voltron.”

They paused to let the new knowledge sink in with the paladins. It was a lot of information, after all.

“So basically,” Hunk clarified. “the Red and Blue lions ran out of magical fuel?” 

Coran nodded. “That is correct, yes.”

“How many cores are there?” Keith asked.

“Four. There is one core for each lion except for the black one, the cores give magical energy to the black lion when Voltron is formed.”

Shiro furrowed his brow. “Princess, where can we find these cores?” 

“Or where can we get the parts to build them?” Pidge said, her brown eyes sparked in curiosity.

“You can’t build a core Pidge, you have to find them,” Allura bit her lip, she was gazing at the holographic projection of the galaxy that had been displayed a few seconds earlier. “And it won’t be easy locating them, I wish I could go to the nearest planet and get them, but the lions choose their cores, not me.”

“What do you mean by choosing?” Lance asked and placed a hand on his hip. “Aren’t these cores just ancient Altean tech?”

“Cores aren’t machines.” Allura murmured softly, she then looked up at the paladins seriously and spoke clearly. “Cores aren’t machines. They’re people.”


	2. A Planet Called Earth

In life, there always seems to be people who are natural heroes, people who were born to go on a quest to save the day. The kind of people that if given the opportunity for adventure, they would go without hesitation knowing that this was their destiny, and it was too bad that chance was given to the least qualified, most unheroic like teenage girls in the world. It was a an unusually dry spring day when it happened, three friends had decided to go outside for once, and they immediately regretted their decision. 

“Can we go home now Abby? My feet are killing me.” 

She had fair skin and short, light brown hair in a pixie cut with matching brown eyes fitted with rectangular glasses. She looked to be about 16 and had a calm and mature expression, which was almost the exact opposite of how she acted. She wore a green shirt and a magenta rain jacket with jeans and black converse.

“Oh c’mon Elise, this isn’t so bad!” The aforementioned Abby, said cheerfully. 

Abby was short and stout with broad shoulders, wide hips and thick arms. She was by no means fat, just wide. She had lightly tanned skin and short dark brown hair that went down to about her jaw-line that was slightly wavy and had lots of frizzy strands sticking out of it. Freckles were scattered on her round cheeks, which made her look fourteen instead of her actual age of sixteen. Abby always seemed to wear a smile on her face, which perfectly matched her unusual golden-amber eyes. She wore a simple white shirt with mid-length yellow sleeves, a navy blue sweater tied around her waist, capri pants and blue sneakers.

“Besides, there’s supposed to be a good froyo place nearby, we can take this shortcut!” Abby grinned.

“Um, what’s froyo?” asked the third girl, Dulcet, who followed along a little bit behind Elise.

Dulcet had pale skin, blue eyes framed with black square glasses and long dark brown hair that was loosely braided. She was tall and thin, with long arms and delicate fingers. She wore black semi-transparent leggings, black flats, and a blue, white, and black knee-length dress. The skirt of the dress was plaid, the top part being mainly white with blue sleeves that stopped just above the elbow, the collar and button line in the front being black in color. The top part of the dress reminded most of a dress shirt, the sleeve collars flicking up like the rolled up cuffs of dress shirts. 

“Frozen Yogurt. It’s kinda like ice cream, except it’s a little healthier but not really.” Elise explained briefly before turning back to Abby. “Why are we heading towards the forest?”

Abby rolled her eyes. “It’s a shortcut, duh.”

“I don’t like this.” Dulcet said glancing at the dense woodland cautiously.

“It’ll be fine! Trust me, I’ve been here hundreds of times!” Abby grabbed Dulcet’s wrist and started to walk on the trail.

“If we get lost I’m blaming you.” Elise muttered before reluctantly following. 

The group hurried through the forest, anxiously wanting to get out as soon as possible. Well at least two thirds of them were anxious, the other one third just wanted food.

“Remind me again why we’re walking instead of driving there?” Dulcet asked.

“My parents wanted me to walk for once,” Abby shrugged. “Besides, we’re almost there, it’s just up ahead.”

“Uh...guys? What is that?” Elise said, pointing at something deeper in the woodlands.

The rest if the group turned to see a soft turquoise light coming from deep within the forest. It rippled across the trees like it was reflecting water.

“Is that normal?” Dulcet whispered as if she was scared the light would hear her.

“No..at least I don’t think it’s normal.” Elise murmured in reply, moving a bit closer to Dulcet because she knew the brunette wasn’t a fan of things that were considered strange.

“We should check it out.” Abby said as she cautiously stepped towards the mysterious glow, and though she usually was more cautious about these kinds of things, but this time curiosity got the best of her.

“Are you crazy?!” Elise hissed. “It could be dangerous!”

“It can be harmless too. Aren’t you even the least bit interested?” The petite girl urged. “Tell you what, I’ll go first. If it’s dangerous I’ll holler and you can get a headstart in running for our lives.”

“We’re not gonna leave you alone, dummy.” Dulcet frowned.

“Then come with me.”

“FINE.” Elise sighed in defeat. 

The three of them approached the light carefully, even Abby was quiet. Moments later they reached the source of the light, a small but deep lake was shining an unnatural blue hue, and the trio stared at the water in awe, mesmerized by the soft glow that seemed to call to them.

“I think it’s coming from the bottom of the lake.” Dulcet murmured.

All of a sudden the water began to glow brighter, and the three had to shield their eyes from the brilliant light. They could only get glimpses of the water, but it looked like something was stirring up the mud on the bottom of the lake, and as the water became brighter and brighter something broke the surface and erupted with a mighty splash, spraying water everywhere. The blue light was so blinding that they had to close their eyes and look away, and then just as it appeared the light disappeared. Carefully, Abby opened her eyes to get a glimpse of the lake, they opened wide once she saw what was bobbing on its surface.

“Holy crow..” Elise breathed. 

A white and surprisingly clean oval-shaped object the size of a casket was drifting towards them, as it got closer, the three friends could see strange markings, and then they knew that the object wasn’t made by humans.

“Oh my god. OH MY GOD.” Abby exclaimed, flailing her arms around in a panic.

“WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!” Elise screamed. 

Dulcet just stared wide-eyed at the pod, like it was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. Soon the alien object reached the shore a few feet away from the panicking teens, and all of the sudden a panel slid open. The trio peered inside to find that something-no, someone was inside, sleeping. It was a girl with long flowing snow-white hair and fair skin, At first glance she she looked human, but if you looked closely you could see a pink crescent shape on each cheek and pointed elf-like ears. Even her outfit was strange, a white full-body armor-like suit with long sleeves, puffy shoulder pads and a red v-shape on the chest. There were black, geometric sections on the hips, waist and inner thighs with red sections on her shoulders and waist. Thick red lines outlined the black cloth and made v shapes under the knee caps. 

“Is...is it dead?” Elise whispered.

Suddenly the girl opened her eyes, and the three friends leaped back in surprise while the alien sat up and surveyed the area, her silver eyes quickly locking on Abby’s golden ones. In a split-second the alien girl was out of her pod and had Abby pinned to the ground, the girl didn’t even have time to scream.

“You,” She addressed Dulcet menacingly, as if she thought the girl would have any useful information. “Tell me who you are, and where I am. Don’t you dare think about running away, or else your friend here will get hurt.”

“I um..” Dulcet stuttered. “Y-you’re an Alte- um, an alien!”

The white-haired girl rolled her eyes. “Figured that one on your own did you? Now, if you primitive life-forms don’t tell me what I want to hear in the next few ticks, then this one will get it.” 

She tightened her grip and Abby winced, Dulcet’s eyes widening as she kinda froze up. She never was good in stressful situations.

“Ok, ok, we’ll tell you!” Elise said, taking the initiative and stepping forward. “Just let her go first, kay?” 

The alien hesitated for a moment before releasing her prisoner, Abby scrambling away the second she was let go. Let’s see, strange alien plus violence usually didn’t add to a happy ending, at least not in the movies.

“First of all, tell me where I am.” She demanded.

“Y-you’re in Oregon?” Dulcet explained hesitantly.

“Where the quiznak is that?!”

“It’s on a planet called Earth!” She yelped in fear

“Have the Galra conquered this side of the universe yet?”

“Galra?” Abby tilted her head. “What’s that?”

“Apparently not.” The alien muttered to herself, before speaking more clearly “Tell me who you are, now.”

“Calm down,” Elise said holding her hands up in a peaceful gesture. “We’ll tell you. My name’s Elise. This is Dulcet, and the one you pinned to the ground is Abby.” She gestured to the other two thirds of the trio when she said their names, Abby giving a nervous little wave; Dulcet on the other hand was a little more worried, kinda unmoving in her anxiousness and fear. “Would you mind telling us who you are? Maybe we could help you out.”  
The alien girl hesitated before speaking. “My name is Rinya, soldier under the command of King Alfor of the planet Altea. I am the core of the red lion of Voltron.”

“Altea?” Elise murmured, clearly confused.

“Voltron?” Dulcet’s eyes widened at that word, she seemed like a mixture of hope and a crap ton of fear.

“Red lion?” Abby frowned, clearly as confused as the rest of the trio.

Rinya nodded. “And unless you have some sort of communication device strong enough to reach Altea, I won’t be able to get off this planet and go back home.”

Dulcet shook her head. “Earth’s technology isn’t as advanced as yours. Elise’s phone has international service, would that work?”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Elise replied with a small chuckle. “Good try though.”

“Quiznak! Now I’m gonna be stuck on this stupid planet forever!” Rinya groaned. 

“Wait a sec guys,” Elise said, digging her phone out of her pocket. “Remember the picture that went viral a few weeks ago? The one with the alien ship sighting in the Sonoran desert?”

“Yeah, but everyone says it’s fake,” Abby sighed, kicking a small rock. “Even the Garrison said it was made up, and they were right where it supposedly happened.”

“The Garrison could be lying.”

“Oh great,” Abby groaned. “Now you’ve become a conspiracy theorist.”

“Shut up, Abby. Anyways, the picture’s blurry since it was taken by an amature, but check it out.” 

Everyone gathered around Elise’s phone to get a closer look. On the screen was an image that was slightly pixelated due to it being zoomed in so much, but on it was a silver and dark-blue blob in the sky that had a vaguely feline form. 

“Are you sure that your lion isn’t blue?” Dulcet looked over at Rinya, who was staring wide-eyed at the screen.

“I’m positive mine’s red, but that isn’t my lion, that’s the blue lion!” Rinya replied.

“One lion, two lion. Red lion, Blue lion.” Abby grinned smugly at her own joke, despite the fact that the two who could understand the joke weren’t as pleased.

“You’re done.” Elise groaned, clearly not in the mood for such bad humor.

“But what’s it doing here?” Dulcet tried to get things back on track with the conversation by asking a question, which worked in her favor. 

“How should I know? And wait, there are more of these lions? And yours is red?”

“Yes, there’s five of them. But that’s not important, do you know where this was taken?” Rinya would never say it, but she was a little bummed; the Red lion wasn’t there like she’d hoped, but Blue would have to do.

Elise nodded, getting up a picture of a landmark quite near to where the picture was taken. “The picture was taken near the Galaxy Garrison, which is in Arizona. But it takes like, twenty hours to drive there from here, if you exclude traffic, sleep time, and breaks for food. And if we decide to walk, it’ll take weeks to get there.”

“Well, I better start walking then.” Rinya grimaced at the thought and turned towards the other three. “Thanks for your help. Now, if you could give me directions and maybe a map, I’ll get going.”

“Woah, woah, woah, time out!” Abby made a T-shape with her hands. “While walking all the way to Arizona is pretty badass, I will admit, but you wouldn’t go far. The moment someone sees you, they’ll call the FBI and you’ll be taken away for experimentation and stuff.”

Dulcet grimaced and clenched her fists when she heard that, though nobody seemed to notice. Maybe it was a sore spot? Though the reasoning behind said thing being a sore spot would forever be a mystery.

“So what’s stopping you from doing that to me?” The white haired alien huffed her question, wanting to leave already

“Because even though we just met, and you pinned me to the ground, and threatened us, I like you. You don’t seem like a bad person...alien...thingy.”

“Abby’s right.” Elise put her hand on Dulcet’s shoulder when she noticed the brunette’s clenched fist, hoping a little reassurance would calm them down. “We want to help you, but your plan is the equivalent of suicide. Even if you did avoid getting caught, you’d still need food, water and rest. Plus what if you got lost along the way? Then what?”

Rinya stayed silent as she weighed her options.

“You’re going to need our help, Rinya.” 

The Altean looked up quickly at the trio who all seemed determined and happy to help this alien they had just met, it was the first time they or anyone called her by her name in a long time, and for some reason it made her chest feel warm and tight. How long has it been since she had to evacuate the Castle of Lions? Months? Maybe years? Rinya wasn’t sure how much time she had slept in the cryo-pod, but suddenly hearing her name spoken by a group of strangers made her heart ache, she now wanted to go home more than ever. 

“Fine,” She said after a long moment of silence. “Let’s say that I believe you for a tick, that I trust you guys not to sell me out, which I don’t. Even if I do let you help me, how the flying quiznak are you three going to get me there?”

“Beats me.” Abby shrugged, as the Altean girl’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find a way.” Dulcet was determined, shaking off the little anxious feelings that prickled her shoulders while Rinya looked at her doubtfully.

“And if you still don’t believe us, then think of us as your hostages. You could probably take us all down in two minutes.” Abby smirked playfully. 

“We’ll come up with a plan, and in the meantime, let’s just go to my place. I don’t live far from here, and my parents aren’t home right now; we can talk about it tonight since we were having a sleepover anyways.” Elise offered, watching with a smile as the rest of the trio agreed with the idea, leaving the final decision to the alien.

Rinya thought about it for a moment before sighing in defeat. “Fine, you win. Let’s go.”

“Awesome! This is so cool, we’re gonna have so much fun!” Abby cheered. 

“Yeah, we are.” Dulcet nodded, grinning in agreement.  
The Altean sighed again, she had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be as fun as these humans seemed to think, but she’d try to see the bright side of this whole mess.


	3. The Journey

“Ok, so cores are people, I get that much. But how do they power the lions? Do they perform some kind of weird ritual? Also why do we have to search for these core-people? I mean why can’t we just power the lions ourselves?” Hunk rambled, asking millions of questions at once.

Allura sighed then calmly explained. “Cores power the lions by giving energy- their quintessence, to the lions. It’s similar to how my energy powers the teludav in order to make wormholes. In order to power the lions, a core must have massive amounts of energy that is compatible with their lion within their bodies and they also have to be able to use it. It would be very difficult to find a person like that, let alone someone like that who was chosen by a lion. And even if a paladin had the right requirements to be a core, the process of giving energy is physically and mentally exhausting, so you wouldn’t be able to pilot the lion properly.”

“In other words, it takes two to pilot a lion,” Coran added. “Well, you don’t necessarily need the core to pilot the lion, but you need them if you want to use all of your lion’s abilities.”

“So where do we find the cores?” Shiro asked as he turned to the princess, she might be able to make this whole thing get done a lot faster. “Can you locate them like you did with the lions?”

“I...I can try,” Allura spoke hesitantly, before returning to her usual controlled state. “It may take a while.”  
Shiro nodded. “Alright, in the meantime we’ll just have to make due without some of these abilities.” The black paladin then turned his head to look out the window, “I just hope that these cores are safe and out of Zarkon’s reach, wherever they are.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I hate this,” Rinya grumbled as she stepped out of the bathroom. 

After finding out that Altean’s can shape-shift, the trio of humans made Rinya change her appearance to look more human, just to ensure her safety; a rather sweet idea from them. The alien’s ears were now rounded, the pink marks on her cheeks invisible, but everything else was the same. She now wore a black tank top, a red hoodie and cargo pants instead of her uniform. Her snow-white locks had been brushed and styled into two simple braids.

“Well, we can’t have you walking around in alien clothes.” said Abby

“Yeah, besides you look cute.” Dulcet nodded in approvement as she looked over her outfit.

“Oh shush, I probably look stupid.” She complained, obviously not trying to hide how unphased she was at Dulcet’s compliment.

“Don’t worry, at least now you don’t look suspicious.” Elise gave a reassuring smile.

“If you say so.”

“Alright.” Abby clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “So now that we made Rinya look relatively human, step one of operation ‘ET-Phone-Home’ is done. Now onto step two, probably the most difficult one of them all.” 

“Which is?” The aforementioned Rinya asked with clear confusion, seeing as the only one with the plan was Abby and she was sharing it piece by piece.

“Convincing our parents to let us drive all the way to Arizona.” Abby said grimly.

“What do you think you’ll find there anyway?” Dulcet tilted her head.

“I’m hoping that the place where the blue lion was kept all this time has some Altean tech stashed somewhere that I could use.” the white haired alien answered like it was an obvious answer; which in all honesty, it was.

“And if there isn’t?” The long haired brunette frowned, glancing from Rinya to Abby and back again.

“Let’s worry about that when the time comes..” Abby cut in, an unusually serious expression on her face. “First we need to figure out how to get there. I mean, I’ll be driving since I’m the only one who knows how. My parents trust me with the car, but there’s no way they’d let me drive that far by myself. Especially on short notice.”

“It’s a similar story for Dulcet and I.” Elise chimed in, knowing her parents would kill her for even going out of town with the car.

“Well the answer’s obvious then,” Dulcet started to say, pausing to allow the idea to wash over her mind. “We don’t tell them and sneak out on our own.”

A heavy silence filled the room, and Elise had a feeling that if she left now, she wouldn’t be able to see her family for a very long time. Even though they planned to return, not telling them felt like they were running away for good. 

“I know you guys don’t like it, but it’s the only way.” Dulcet told them, reassuringly rubbing their hands in a gently, almost motherly way.

“Look guys, I appreciate what you’re doing, but this is too much,” Rinya stood up and addressed the humans. “I can’t ask you to lie to your families and run away for me.”

“No,” Elise spoke in a commanding voice, like she was imitating a ship captain. “We said we were going to help you, and we will.”

“Besides, it’s not like we’re going away forever. We’ll leave a note for them and come back. We’re probably going to be grounded for life, but it’ll be worth it.” Abby smiled.

“But-”

“We’re going to help you.” Dulcet said sternly, cutting Rinya off. “You’re our friend.”

“We just met yesterday.” 

“So? We’re still friends.”

“You Earthlings are weird.” Rinya muttered.

“Yeah, we get that a lot.” Abby smirked

In the end, they agreed on telling their guardians that they were going to the mall to go shopping. The four of them quickly packed their supplies. The humans left notes for their families (Dulcet left one for Elise’s parents), assuring that they were fine and that they would come back safely. Soon they were on their way.  
The excitement of the journey wore off after thirty minutes when the boredom set in. About two hours later, they had driven out of reach from the radio towers, so they were forced to listen to the Hamilton sound track on Elise’s phone. Dulcet and Elise were very happy about this and Abby tried to pretend that she was sick of listening to it. The drive was long, they had to make many stops along the way. Mostly because they would get pulled over every time they drove past the police because they thought Abby was too young to drive. Her round cheeks and lack of height made her look 14 instead of 16, she hated how young she looked, but there was nothing she could do about it. So there were plenty of visits from wide-eyed police officers.  
After a while, Elise and Dulcet began telling Rinya about Earth, and introduced her to all the junk food they bought at convenience stores along the way. At first, Rinya didn’t talk much, she only gave short answers and listened to conversations. But soon enough she became open to them. She began to tell them about Altea and King Alfor. She told stories about the many adventures she had as the red core. She admitted that she missed her brother and uncle, and how she couldn’t wait to see them. Two days and one night on the road, the group slept in the car since they’re too broke for hotels, they finally reached the Sonoran desert.

“Yes! We’re here!” Abby whooped as she exited the car, stretching her cramped legs. 

“Now what?” The four of them stared at the vast landscape in front of them, not sure where to start their search.

“Well, we could head towards the Garrison, it was seen around that area.” Abby suggested. 

“Then what? We have no idea where to look. Besides, it might be bad if we’re caught snooping near the Garrison. They could take us into questioning and then they’d find out who Rinya is.” Elise pointed out.

“Guys? I think we should go that way.” Dulcet pointed south, where you could see the outline of of desert cliffs. 

 

“Why that way?” Rinya looked at her with an arched her eyebrow.

“I don’t know...just a feeling.” She replied with a shrug.

“Those cliffs are a few miles north of the Garrison, so it could actually be there.” Elise said, looking up from her phone.

“Well, it’s better than nothing, let’s go.” 

The four of them searched in the cliffs on foot, not finding a single clue to where the blue lion was. This search was seeming more and more hopeless by the minute, especially with the heat.

“Oh my god it’s hot.” Elise complained, fanning herself.

“What are we even searching for anyway?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know, maybe a cave? Somewhere where you can hide a giant blue lion.” Rinya replied, wiping her brow.

“Well that’s not vague at all.”

“This way.” Dulcet walked behind some dusty boulders, the rest of the group had to run after her.

“How do you know where to go?”

“I don’t, It just...feels like it should be here. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like something is telling me to go this way.” Dulcet murmured.

Rinya eyed her curiously before following behind her. Soon they came across a cave, hidden in between two desert cliffs. The four of them went inside to find strange carvings of a creature...of a lion.

“This is it.” Rinya breathed, she placed her hand on the wall, which was cool to the touch. 

“Uh, guys? There’s a hole in the floor.” Elise pointed out.

“Then we go down it.” Rinya said before jumping in.

After much hesitation, the rest followed after her, landing in a shallow pool of water. Using the light of their phones, they were able to find their way out of the pool and into a large cavern with strange markings on the floor. Everyone stared in awe.

“This is where the lion was.” Elise murmured.

“Right, let’s look for any device or technology that might of been left behind.” The Altean instructed. 

Everyone nodded and began to search. They didn’t even walk twenty steps before the room began to glow. A harsh turquoise light filled the cavern as the carvings beneath them lit up. 

“OH MY GOD WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Abby screamed as she clung to Elise, who was frozen stiff.

“Is this supposed to happen?!” Dulcet asked loudly over the sounds of Abby’s panicked cries.

“No! This isn’t supposed to happen! It’s impossible! Unless…” Rinya trailed off.

“Unless what?” Elise asked, her voice trembling. Rinya peeled her silver gaze from the glowing markings and turned to the three humans.

“Unless one of you is the blue core.”


	4. First Encounter

“Paladins! Get up here now! I think I’ve found something!” Allura announced through the castle’s com systems, and soon everyone had gathered at the bridge to hear what the princess had to say.

“What is it?” Hunk asked curiously.

“Did you find the cores?” Pidge added.

“No, but I sensed a surge of energy similar to the blue lion’s on a planet in a distant galaxy.”

“Princess, that’s impossible.” Coran said, fiddling with his mustache.

“I know it’s strange, but I felt it. I’m pinpointing the location of the energy surge now. It looks like it’s…” Allura stopped mid-sentence, staring wide-eyed at her screen 

“What is it Princess? Is something wrong?” Shiro asked, his brow furrowed in concern

“No, nothing’s wrong it’s just that...according to this, the energy is coming from...from earth,”

“WHAT?!” Everyone exclaimed simultaneously. 

“How’s that possible?!” 

“Wait a minute guys.” Keith frowned, thinking for a moment before looking up at the group. “Remember that cave near the Garrison? Y’know, the place where we found the blue lion? Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why the energy showed up in the first place.” The green paladin crossed her arms, deep in thought.

“Whatever the reason, we should investigate, I’ll open up a wormhole for you to go through.” Allura instructed the paladins, Shiro nodded and turned to his team.

“Alright, we should probably go in the green lion since it has camoflauge, we don’t want the public to freak out about this.” Shiro spoke calmly, he always tried to, he was the leader of Voltron after all; so they all nodded and left to suit up.

In no time they were through the wormhole in the camouflaged lion. As they approached Earth, they watched the blue planet for a few minutes, not saying anything. Finally Pidge silently pushed her lion forward to bring them into the earth’s atmosphere. 

Suddenly a blinking light popped up on Pidge’s dashboard, she turned to examine it, and her eyes widened slightly. “It looks like Keith was right, it’s coming from the blue lion’s cave.”

“Alright, everyone stay alert. We may be on our own planet, but that doesn’t mean we should lower our guard.” Shiro put his hand on the green pilot’s shoulder as he addressed his team. 

They managed to squeeze between the two cliffs and land right in front of the cave. They went inside, surprised to find that the carvings on the walls were already glowing. The hole in the cave floor that they fell in long ago revealed that the cavern where they found the lion was also glowing blue. Shiro signaled for the team to stop moving, he then put a finger to his lips to give them a silent warning, he could hear faint murmurings of conversation below them.

“Someone’s down there.” Keith whispered.

“Yeah, but who would know about this place?” Lance asked.

“Whoever they are, let’s hope they’re friendly.” Shiro said before jumping into the hole, using his jetpack to soften his fall, the rest of the team got out their bayards and followed. 

They reached the cavern and saw four figures, standing on the glowing runes where the lion used to be. Once the paladins got closer, they were surprised to see four human girls.

“Wh-who’s there?” The first to speak was a brunette with a pixie cut and glasses.

“If this is your magic glowing cave then we’re sorry, we’ll go and pretend none of this ever happened.” said the second girl, a short but stout girl with short dark brown hair and golden eyes, she was cowering behind a tall girl with long, dark brown hair and glasses. 

The paladins stepped out of the shadows.

“OH GOD MORE ALIENS PLEASE DON’T HURT US!” The shorter girl yelped.

“Relax, we’re not going to hurt you. I’m-” 

“You!” A voice full of fury cut Shiro off, everyone turned to find that it came from the last girl, her silver eyes burned with hatred.

“You...you traitor!” She hissed. Then, she charged at Shiro.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Rinya, wait!” Dulcet cried, but it was too late; Rinya crashed into the black and white figure. knocking him down on the ground.

“Shiro!” The red-armored man exclaimed.

Rinya and the person called Shiro rolled around on the cave floor, eventually the Altean managed to pin them down, knocking off their helmet in the process. Rinya froze once she saw his face.

“You...you’re not Zarkon…” She whispered in disbelief.

“How...how do you know that name?” Shiro gasped. 

Rinya didn’t say anything, she got up and offered a hand, mumbling apologetically. He took her hand and hoisted himself up. Once he was standing, Rinya got a better look at him.

“You’re human,” She said, she then looked over Shiro’s companion’s. “You’re all...human. But that doesn’t make any sense! What happened to the original paladins?!”

“How do you know so much?” The yellow-armored stranger asked. 

Rinya looked at him, then she shapeshifted back to her original form and they gasped.

“You’re Altean!” The boy in the blue armor gasped.

“Very observant of you. My name is Rinya, I’m the core of the red lion.”

“A core!”

“Yes. Now, since I’ve introduced myself it’s time for you to return the favor. Start talking.”

The paladins did what they were told and introduced themselves, Abby, Elise and Dulcet did the same. Then, the two parties briefly exchanged stories and how they got to where they were now.

“So let me get this straight, you guys are fighting a war against purple aliens using giant mecha-lions that combine into a giant robot warrior?” Abby said in awe.

“Basically.” Pidge shrugged.

“And you’re looking for the cores now, right?” Rinya asked.

“Yes, it’s a good thing we found you, come with us and we’ll take you to the princess.” Shiro told the group.

“The princess? Do you mean Princess Allura? What happened to King Alfor?”

Shiro’s expression turned grim. “I think it would be best if she explained that,” the black paladin then turned to the other three girls. “I appreciate all you’ve done to get Rinya here, but you need to leave. It’s too dangerous for you to come with us and your families must be worried.”

“It isn’t that simple.” The Altean explained, “One of these girls is the blue core, otherwise the cave wouldn’t be reacting this way.”

“So what do we do?”

“The answer’s simple.” Dulcet cut in, crossing her arms. “You bring all of us with you and figure out which one it is.”

“Besides, there’s no way you’re gonna let one of our friends go with you by herself.” Elise smiled, placing her hand on Dulcet’s shoulder.

“Are you sure?” Keith asked, knowing the price that came with being around them. “You might not see your families aga-...for a while.”

“The universe is in danger, we should help in any way we can. It’s...it’s the right thing to do.” Abby bit her lip, trying not to cry as Elise looked down at the ground in silent agreement.

“Well, it’s not like I have a family to miss.” Dulcet spoke up in an effort to lighten the mood.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Six months ago I lost my memory, Elise’s family found me and took me in. I’ve tried everything to remember, but I can’t.” Dulcet smiley dryly.

“It was pretty bad when we first found you. We had to re-teach you some words you forgot.” Elise said

“Didn’t you forget how to use the toilet once?” Abby smirked

“Shut up Abby.”

“Alright enough, it looks like you’ve made your decision. Now let’s get out of this cave.”

It took a while, the paladins had to use their jetpacks to climb out of the hole, not only that but they had to do it while carrying someone. After much maneuvering, all nine of them managed to get out of the cave safely. Elise, Abby and Dulcet’s jaw dropped once they saw the green lion.

“It’s huge!” Abby exclaimed, tilting her head up to look at it.

“Uh, is it just me is the lion’s eyes following me?” Elise said while moving her head from side to side.

“It’s just you.”

“Ok everyone.” Shiro said firmly, “Let’s go.”

“Um...hey Shiro?” Lance asked hesitantly, the leader looked back at him in concern.

“Do you think...do you think I can visit my family real quick? Just to tell them I’m ok?”

Shiro’s eyes softened as he put his hand on Lance’s shoulder. “I know you’re worried about them, but we don’t have time. And going there would make you tempted to stay, and we need you here with us. I know it’s hard, but we have to do this.”

Lance looked at the ground and nodded.

“Uh...Lance, right?” The blue paladin turned around to find Elise behind him, phone in hand.

“There isn’t much of a signal but you could try calling them…”

Lance grabbed the phone hesitantly and dialed a phone number. He bit his lip as he put it up to his ear, after 30 seconds he hung up and handed it back to Elise.

“The signal couldn’t get through...thanks anyway.”

“...No problem.”

 

The large group somehow managed to fit in the cockpit, though it was in no way comfortable. Any sense of personal space was obliterated, but everyone was too uncomfortable to be embarrassed by the closeness.

“Can we go now? I’m literally stuck between a rock and a hard place and I’d like to get out of it as soon as possible.” Elise whined, she was pressed up against a wall with Abby trapping her there.

“Hey! I’m not a rock!” Abby protested

“Guys, no one’s happy to be in this situation, but the sooner we get to the castle the better. Pidge, ready when you are.” Shiro told them, calm in pretty much any situation.

Pidge managed to wriggle her way to her seat and grabbed the controls, causing the cockpit to light up. All of a sudden there was a mechanical hissing noise behind them and they all turned to see what it was. A door slid open, revealing a room not even the green paladin had seen before. The room was slightly smaller than the cockpit. The room had a chair like the pilot’s, except that instead where the armrests should be there was two white round columns with glowing green orbs attached to the top, the columns looked similar to the device Allura used to power the castle. On the walls were holographic images of a blue sky with clouds, projecting what was outside the lion.

“I call dibs on the chair!” Lance hollered as he squeezed past his teammates.

“Wait, don’t-” Rinya warned him but it was too late, as soon as the blue paladin stepped foot in the new room, a blinding light propelled him backwards and he collided Hunk who groaned on impact.

“What the quiznak was that?!” Lance exclaimed, scrambling to get up in the confined space.

“You ok Lance?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah, just stings a little.”

“I was trying to warn you,” Rinya explained, everyone turned to face her, or at least did the best they could with their restricted movements. “That’s the core room, only the core and the respective paladin can enter it, anyone else who tries gets rejected. But the room shouldn’t of opened...that is, unless the green lion could sense its core’s presence.”

“Wait, are you telling me that not just one but two of you are cores?!” Hunk said wide-eyed to Elise, Dulcet and Abby. “Why didn’t you tell us?!”

“How the heck were we supposed to know?!” Elise cried out incredulously.

“Maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that you guys found Rinya.” Shiro said thoughtfully.

“Brace yourselves.” Keith warned. “We’re about to go through the wormhole.” 

Those who hadn’t seen a wormhole before stared in awe at the mysterious portal in front of them. After much turbulence and several moments of Hunk’s gagging, they managed to fly through the wormhole. As they got closer Rinya gazed at the castle longingly. 

Once Pidge landed her lion in the hanger, everyone scrambled out of the cockpit as fast as they could, gasping for fresh air. Needless to say, some of the people in the group were all shocked and amazed at everything around them, Elise and Dulcet stood in place with jaws dropped while Abby ran around touching everything.   
Then, someone new stepped into the room and they all turned to look. It was an Altean with dazzling blue eyes and almond-brown skin, she had long white hair that was pinned in a bun. She wore an outfit similar to the one Rinya was wearing in the pod except it had pink and blue sections instead of red ones. She wore simple jewelry with her outfit, a purple pair of earrings and a gold circlet. The woman looked very regal and feminine, but she also looked strong and in no way delicate.

“Paladins.” She said in a crisp voice, “What’s going on? Who are these people and why are they here?”

“Princess Allura.” Rinya said, she came closer to the princess before kneeling, admiration shining in her silver eyes.

“You...you’re Altean!”

“Yes, your highness, I am.” Rinya replied simply.

“What were you doing on Earth?”

“A few days ago, I was found in a cryo-pod by these three humans.” She said, gesturing to her companions. “They guided me to the cave where the blue lion was, where we were found by the pa-...by the other humans.” Rinya forced out, she still had a hard to believing that they were the real paladins.

“Could you mind telling me who you are?” Allura asked.

“Of course princess, I am the core of the red lion. My name is-”

“It can’t be.” A new voice came from behind princess Allura, standing there was an Altean man with orange hair with a mustache of the same color, his purple eyes were wide in shock.

“Rinya? Is that you?”


	5. Reunions & Discoveries

“Rinya? Is that you?”

Rinya stood up and looked at the man who had called her name with an equally shocked expression.

“Coran?” She said in disbelief, then gave him a devilish grin “Hey there old man. It’s been awhile-”   
Rinya didn’t get the chance to finish, Coran had run up to her and crushed her in a hug. She stiffened in surprise before returning the gesture. 

“Thanks goodness you’re alright, I thought I’d never see you again.” He mumbled into her hair as he tightened the hug. 

“What’s this all of a sudden?” She laughed nervously, patting his back reassuringly “I haven’t been gone that long have I?”

“What?” Coran pulled back from the hug and gripped her shoulders, his expression baffled.

“I mean I’m not sure, but I think I’ve been gone for maybe a year at most, otherwise you’d have gray hair by now.” Rinya joked, but her smile faltered once she saw the pain in the older man’s eyes.

“You don’t know…”

“What? What’s wrong?” Rinya asked in worry.

“Rinya,” Allura said gently, she hesitated a moment before continuing, “Like us, you’ve been asleep for 10,000 years.”

Her eyes widened in shock “10,000 years? That’s impossible! Where’s King Alfor?! Where are the paladins?!”

“They’re gone, Rinya.” Coran whispered softly “I’m sorry.”

The girl stood in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity. Then she buried her face in her hands and let out a deep sob. Coran embraced the girl once again and she leaned into his chest as she tried her best to silence the sounds of her crying.

“So...you know her?” Lance said, completely obliterating the heavy atmosphere to which Pidge scolded him with a slap to the blue paladin’s arm.

“Learn to read the mood!” She hissed.

“Of course I know her, she’s my niece.” Coran replied, rubbing her back comfortingly before he then turned to Allura. “I’d like to take her to my room.”

“Yes of course, tell us when she calms down.” Coran nodded, then guided Rinya out of the room.

“Princess, there’s something we need to discuss.” Shiro said once the two were out of sight.

“What is it?”

“We found these three girls with Rinya in the blue lion’s cave.” He said, beckoning the ones he mentioned to move closer.

“Hi, I’m Abby. This is Elise and Dulcet.” The small girl smiled.

“I am Princess Allura of Altea.” Allura then turned to Shiro. “I don’t mean to be rude, but why are they here?”

“Rinya said that the reason why the cave reacted that way, was because it sensed that the blue core was nearby.” Keith replied with his arms crossed.

“Don’t forget the core room in the green lion!” Hunk piped up.

“Oh yeah, Allura you should've seen Lance try to walk into the core room, it was hilarious.” Pidge smirked.

“Hey!”

“But that means…” The princess trailed off, she stared at the three girls in front of her in wonder. “That means that two of you are cores.”

“Yeah, problem is we don’t know which ones.” Lance shrugged.

“Well we should be able to figure that out without much difficulty.” The Altean said thoughtfully. “The lions should be able to tell us.”

“How?”

“The lions are powered down now, correct?” She stated it more than asked, something she often did. “The lions will only react with their paladins and/or their cores. There have been very few cases where they have reacted to anyone else, and it’s usually been in an emergency.” 

“So basically we touch each lion to see which one of us it’ll react to?” Dulcet said.

“Precisely, we also have to make sure that the paladin is far enough away so that we know that the lion will be reacting to the core.”

“Ok then, let’s get started!” Abby said enthusiastically, she ran to the closest lion, which happened to be the blue one, and placed her hand on it’s paw; Nothing. “No good, huh? Elise, you try it!” 

But Elise wasn’t paying attention, she was walking over to the green lion in a trance-like state. She closed her eyes before gently touching it’s metal surface. Almost instantly the lion’s eye glowed and it let out a deep purr. The group gazed in awe and Elise smiled.

“That’s one down, which means…” Everyone turned their gazes to Dulcet, who was staring at the blue lion.

Lance draped his arm on Dulcet’s shoulder, “I kinda don’t like the idea of sharing Blue with someone, but I’m glad that at least my partner’s pretty.” 

He then winked and made finger-guns at her, which gained groans from everyone else. Dulcet seemed mildly uncomfortable with the gesture.

“So the only one missing is the yellow core, right?” Pidge asked, and Allura nodded. 

Abby walked up to the yellow lion and patted it’s paw comfortingly. “Aw, don’t worry big guy! We’ll find your core soon!” 

Suddenly the lion rumbled to life, it’s eyes lighting up, it lowered its head and parted its jaw, as if giving her permission to enter. Abby yelped and jumped back in alarm. Everyone stared at her disbelief.

“Abby, you’re-”

“I SWEAR IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I’M SORRY!” Abby blurted out all at once. 

“No it’s ok.” Allura smiled warmly. “It just means that we’ve found all the cores.”

“Wait, WHAT?! ME?!” 

“Awesome!” Hunk suffocated her in a hug. “You’re gonna be my buddy!”

“Well that takes care of that.” Shiro laughed, shaking his head.

“So, what exactly do cores do?” Elise asked after shaking Pidge’s hand.

“Better sit down, this is gonna take a while.” Lance muttered as Allura began to explain.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So...all we have to do is go in the lions and give them our energy so that they can fight? That doesn’t sound too bad I guess.” Abby commented after the princess had finished.

“Not quite, there’s more to a core than just giving energy.” Allura replied, going into more explanation. “A core must also bond with the lion and it’s paladin, absolute trust between the three is essential in order to unlock the abilities of both the lion and the core.”

“What do you mean by that?” Keith asked frowning.

“As I said before, the cores provide the energy used for some of the lion’s abilities, but they can only be unlocked if the bond between the core and paladin is strong enough.”

“Wait, you said abilities for the lion and the core.” Elise tilted her head.

“Yes, that is correct. When a core has earned the trust of the lion, it will grant them a unique power in order for the cores to defend themselves. Granted it’s more like a bayard than an actual ability, but nevertheless, it must be earned.”

“This is way too complicated.” Lance muttered, Hunk nodded in agreement. 

“It shouldn’t be that hard.” Shiro urged “All you have to do is get along with your cores.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” Pidge smiled at Elise.

“Yeah, we’re gonna be a great team, right beautiful?” Lance winked again at Dulcet, who stepped away from him.

“Don’t worry, Keith.” Abby smiled, putting her hand on his arm comfortingly “From what I’ve seen, Rinya’s a nice girl. I’m sure you two will be fine together.”

“I hope so.” He mumbled. 

All of a sudden alarms started blaring and lights tinted the castle interior red. Everyone jolted upright. 

“Everyone, get to your lions!” Allura ordered, she then turned to the cores “Quickly, get changed into your suits.”

“W-what? What for?” Dulcet asked.

“You’re going with them.”

“What?! How?! We just found out that we were cores! We don’t know what to do!” Elise cried.

“I’ll tell you on the way.” Stated a voice behind them, they turned to find Rinya wearing the red, black and white suit that they found her in. “For now just put these on and get in.” 

She handed the three of them suits nearly identical to her own, the only difference being that each one was color coordinated to match their lion. The three girls put the armor on as fast as they could, then ran into the mouths of the mechanical beasts where their paladins were waiting.

“Ugh, it kinda smells like puke in here.” Abby complained, her voice broadcasted over the coms.

“Sorry.” Hunk apologized.

Under Rinya’s instruction, the cores sat down in the core room and placed their hands on the glowing orbs that sat on the white poles in front of them. As soon as they made contact, they felt massive amounts of energy flow between them and the lion. It was an exhilarating feeling, it felt like they had become a part of the weapon, no, it was more than that. The way their energy hummed and pulsed into the beast, it was as if they were the very heart of the lion. 

“Whoa.” Elise murmured dizzily and the other cores seemed to agree.

“Are you guys alright?” Shiro asked in concern.

“Yeah..it’s just…”

“Weird.”

“Different.”

“Incredible.” Each human core gave their own response and Rinya laughed.

“You’ll learn to love the feeling. Alright let’s go!”

The five lions launched out of the castle to find themselves face to face with a Galran warship. A fleet of smaller spacecrafts were coming out of it and heading straight towards them.

“Is it too late to go back?” Abby whimpered.

“Ok team, let’s go!” The black paladin gave the signal and the lions scattered as they tried to take down the smaller ships first; It was absolute chaos, lasers and explosions came from every direction.

“Ugh! I have too many ships on my tail! I can’t shake them off!” Pidge grunted, trying to escape her pursuers.

“Elise! You can help! Focus your energy into the lion and use it as a jet booster to go faster!” Rinya commanded.

“O-Ok!” Elise said uncertainly. 

She closed her eyes and concentrated, not exactly sure what she was doing but at least she was trying. Suddenly, she felt something in her chest, like electricity. The feeling spread through her chest and arms until it flowed into her fingertips. The tingly feeling slowly left her chest as it traveled down her arms, into her hands and then into the lion. Once the sensation was gone Elise’s body stung, it felt like she was tired in every way possible.

“Woah, I don’t know what you did, but somehow the green lion feels more energized!” Pidge exclaimed, Elise nodded weakly. 

Pidge used that extra energy to boost her lion’s jets and escape from the galran ships. Meanwhile, Lance was having an ice-blast frenzy. It seemed like every third attack was the ice beam. He laughed like a child, thrilled to have the lion’s ability again.

“Isn’t this awesome?!” He asked his partner, grinning like a madman. Dulcet gripped her glowing blue hand holds for dear life as the blue lion did jerky flips and turns. 

No, this definitely was not fun. Every time Lance did an ice attack, a weird sensation sprang from her chest, flowed down her arms and into the lion. At first the feeling was cold, but not uncomfortably so. However, each time Lance fired his ice cannon, the feeling grew colder and colder. Dulcet’s body was aching, her mind was starting to slow down from the unfamiliar strain.

Thankfully the battle didn’t drag on for much longer, the paladins didn’t need to form Voltron for the fight, they quickly crippled the Galran warship, then flew into the hangars before Allura wormholed them to another part of the universe. Lance landed and hopped out of his lion grinning. He jogged over to where everyone had gathered to congratulate each other on the victory.

“That was awesome!” The blue paladin laughed as he pulled off his sweaty helmet. He raised his hand in the air for a high five. 

What he got instead was a punch in the face. It was so strong and forceful that it made Lance fall to the ground. Not quite registering what had happened, he touched his injured cheek with his hands in shock. Once it clicked, Lance was furious. He looked up to see who had attacked him. Standing above him with firsts clenched was Rinya, she was glaring down at him, her eyes glowed in anger like molten metal.

“Rinya!” Shiro snapped, his usual calm expression replaced with anger “What is wrong with you?! Lance is your teammate! Why-”

“YOU QUIZNAKING IDIOT!!!” Rinya screamed at Lance, ignoring the black paladin. Everyone stared at her, some in fear, others in shock. “Do you not care about your core?! About Dulcet?!” 

Lance looked up at her in confusion. “W-what?”

“You kept using the ice powers over and over again! Do you have any idea what that does to a core?! To us?!” Lance didn’t say anything, he was pinned under the Altean’s fiery gaze.

“Powering up the lions takes our energy, Lance! Our life-force! Using those abilities consecutively without letting the core rest and recover is dangerous! You could've killed her!” Everyone let out a gasp at this new information. Lance sat there unmoving, a horrified look appeared on his face once he realized what he could of done.

“Rinya, I think that’s enou-”

“No Shiro, it’s not. He needs to know. All of you need to know.” Rinya said, tears started to form in her eyes. “I’ve seen a core die because of this. I almost died once for the same reason in the past. Having almost every last drop of your life-force drained from you is one of the most painful things you can imagine. Voltron may be powerful, but that power comes with a price, think before using it.” Rinya then turned and dashed into the lion, it’s mouth still open.  
Lance looked at the floor as the guilt crashed down on him like a trainwreck. Not only had he made Dulcet suffer, but he also left her in the lion without even thinking of checking on her. Rinya emerged from the lion, holding the blue core bridal style. Her body shivered as if she had gone swimming in an arctic ocean, her skin was so pale it was practically translucent, dark circles had formed under her eyes in exhaustion. 

“Will she be ok? Should...should we put her in a healing pod?” Hunk asked worriedly. 

Rinya shook her head. “She’ll be fine, she just needs to regain her energy. All she needs is food and rest, and lots of it.”

Then all of a sudden, Dulcet’s appearance started to change. Her entire body started to flicker on and off like a hologram, no, it was a hologram! It seemed like some sort of image had been placed on her like a second skin. Dulcet shuddered, then the thin layer of light that had been covering her body shattered, everyone gasped. Dulcet, the girl with amnesia, the girl who had just become a part of their team, the girl that Elise and Abby had spent so much time with, wasn’t human.


	6. Old Secrets & New Friends

The creature that Rinya was holding wasn’t human. A vaguely humanoid figure was lying where the Dulcet they had known once was. She had lilac skin with blue scale-like freckles dotting her cheeks. Her hair was no longer a dark brown but instead she had light blue hair at the top of her head that slowly faded into light pink at the tips of her braids. Her most distinguishable features was the purple rabbit-like ears popping out of her head with a matching kangaroo-like tail that somehow managed to stick out of her suit. Her eyes were covered with a white mask with black eye-holes, kinda like the ones you see in masquerades. Everyone stared in stunned silence.

“D...Dulcet?” Abby choked out in disbelief. 

“She’s an Aruvi.” Rinya whispered in awe.

“A what?”

“A species from the planet Erobernde.” Rinya explained, looking down at Dulcet in concern “They have the ability to project a mirage-like image around their bodies to change what they look like to others. I heard they became slaves from the Galra. She must of escaped.”

“Did you two know about this?” Hunk asked Elise and Abby, who both shook their heads. 

“But it makes sense now.” Elise murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “When we first found her she was wearing weird clothes. And she didn’t remember the things you should be able to, even when you have amnesia. Sometimes she’d say something weird, like it was in another language, I just thought it was foreign but….god I’ve been friends with an alien this whole time.”

“I’m sure she has a good reason for keeping this from you.” Shiro urged, “But for now we should giver her some space.”

“What’s going on?” Everyone turned to find Allura behind them, panting. Her gaze fell on the unconscious core and her eyes widened.

“Is that-”

“Yes, it’s Dulcet.” Rinya interrupted. “Princess, she needs rest. Are there any sleeping quarters available?”

Allura nodded, worrying a little more than she’d ever admit. “Usually cores and paladins would share sleeping quarters in order to deepen their connection, but right now I believe that that isn’t the best idea.” 

Everyone seemed to agree with this. Rinya walked out of the room, still carrying the unconscious girl in her arms. The princess started to follow her but she was called back by one of the paladins.

“Is there anything we should do? Can we help in any way?” Pidge asked with a frown, turning to Allura who shook her head.

“We’ll start training the cores tomorrow, it’s been a long day for everyone. In the meantime you should try spending time with your core and getting to know them. A strong bond between you is essential. I will be in the bridge if anyone needs me.” With that, she turned and left, leaving everyone else in an awkward silence.

“So, uh...Hunk, right? Why don’t you show me the way to the kitchen? I’m starving!” Abby said, trying to clear the heavy atmosphere. 

Hunk smiled and scratched the back of his head “Sure, I’m a bit hungry too. Could you maybe help me out with dinner? I would really appreciate it since you know, there’s a lot more people to feed now.”

“Sounds good to me.” The two of them strolled out of the room while chatting with each other. As soon as they were gone, Pidge turned to Elise.

“Do you wanna see my workbench?” The green paladin asked.

“Sure.” Elise shrugged, following Pidge as she led them into the hall.

“Well that was fast.” Shiro laughed “I’m going to go to the training deck if anyone wants to join.”

“I’ll come.” Keith said.

“No thanks, I’ll be in my room.” Lance replied, looking at the ground.

“Lance, it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t know.” The red paladin said, but Lance just ignored him and trudged to his quarters.

“He’ll be fine. He just...needs some time.” Shiro reassured his friend. “In the meantime, you should go talk to Rinya.”

“I will later, but right now I want to train.” The two paladins headed to the training deck, leaving the hangar empty.

After everyone decided what they were going to do, Hunk lead Abby to the kitchen. He thought it best to bond over food, cause food helped any and every situation. That, and it would be best to start on dinner, judging by the time of day.


	7. Food Shenanigans

“This is what you guys had to eat?” Abby stared at the bowl of green goo with an arched eyebrow

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it.” Hunk replied “But we do get tired of it, so once in awhile we get some fresh ingredients that I play around with.”

“So what’s on the menu today?”

Hunk glanced down at the various ingredients that was displayed in front of him. Of course the food looked and smelled weird, but Hunk was used to that by now, but the yellow paladin could see that Abby was still adjusting.

“I can do the taste testing if you want.” He offered. Abby replied with a grin.

“And miss out on eating alien food? No way! When it comes to new food, I always say to try everything atleast once...except if it’s monkey brains or something. I’m not touching that.”

Hunk laughed. “That’s a pretty good motto. Anyways, how about we try some of these ingredients, see how they taste?”

Abby nodded grimly, despite what she said earlier, she was still a bit nervous about trying some of the....interesting ingredients. The two rolled up their sleeves and got to work. The first thing they tried was a bright blue fruit/vegetable that naturally grew in a rectangular prism, they decided to nickname it the cube-cumber. Hunk and Abby tried it and found it incredible...incredibly disgusting that is. It had an overpowering flavor that tasted like a mix between chocolate frosting and garlic.

“Well...just because raw cube-cumber tastes gross doesn’t mean that it can’t be tasty if it’s prepared differently.” Abby said while trying to cleanse her tastebuds with water.

“Ooh good thinking!” After much experimentation, they found that setting a cube-cumber on fire for a while makes it taste kind of like a steak with garlic butter with a bit of a spicy kick. Within the next hour, the duo had managed to make two new dishes. While cooking they chatted with each other, learning more and more about their partner as they talked.

“Hey Hunk, are you Hawaiian?” Abby asked, she had started messing with a fuzzy mushroom that was filled with a pink gelatin-like substance.

“Nope, I’m Samoan. What about you?” he replied while examining a pure white fruit. 

“My dad’s American, but my mom’s from Argentina. Can you pass me the spoon?”

“Yeah sure. Does that mean you can speak spanish? Lance is cuban, so you guys could totally talk to each other.”

“That could be fun.” Abby said thoughtfully. As Hunk handed her the spoon, his arm brushed against hers. He yelped in surprise.

“Are you ok?!”

“Yeah I’m fine, but I think you’re having an allergic reaction to the food! Your arm’s got tiny bumps all over it! Oh god do they have epipens in space?!” Hunk began to ramble, Abby laughed.

“I’m fine, I just have a weird skin condition is all....don’t worry it’s not contagious.”

“Oh.” Hunk relaxed “That’s good. Not that there’s anything wrong with bumpy arms!” he added hastily.

“That’s ok. I was born with them. They came from my dad’s…” Abby trailed off. She stopped what she was doing and looked down.

“What’s wrong?” Hunk asked, patting her shoulder in concern.

“I...I miss my family.” She murmured. “I’ve only been gone for a few days, but I already miss them. I miss talking with my mom. I miss teasing my dad. I miss helping my grandparents cook. I miss my dog. I miss home.” There was a long pause before anyone said anything. Finally, the paladin spoke.

“Hey, don’t worry. You’ll see them again, I promise.” he encouraged. “We’re going to do everything we can to stop Zarkon and go home safely. But right now we have an important mission.”

“And what’s that?”

“Making dinner.”

Abby laughed “Thanks Hunk. By the way, you should try this jello-thingy that I mixed with the food goo. It tastes like meat lasagna.” She said, holding up a spoon with the pink substance for him to taste. He took it in his mouth and grinned.

“Hey you’re right! Abby, you have officially become my sous chef!” 

“Great!” The two of them laughed and did a fistbump before they started to clean up and set the table.


	8. Siblings

While the yellow paladin and core bonded over food, the green paladin and core kinda bonded over other things. They bonded over musical soundtracks and technology.

“Welcome to my workshop!” Pidge huffed proudly at the set up in front of her. Elise carefully examined each device in awe.

“You built this stuff?!” Elise asked. The green paladin shrugged.

“Some of it is Altean tech that Coran gave me or some Galra devices that I stole, but yeah. I built it.”

“That’s amazing!”

Pidge scratched the back of her head “Heh, thanks.” Elise glanced at the computer screen, on it was a series of numbers, letters and symbols that scrolled too fast to read. 

“Is that Python or Javascript?” The core asked, still looking at the screen.

“No actually, it’s my own program. I’m surprised you know about programming languages, most people around my age don’t .” Pidge sat down on the floor to fiddle with her devices, Elise did the same and watched with piqued interest.

“Well, Abby’s parents are ‘computer nerds’ as she likes to call them, so she knows a little. She says that between the two of us I’m the better programer, but I don’t think that’s true. All I did was learn from Ian.”

“Ian?”

“My older brother.”

“Oh.” Pidge looked down. Please change the subject. Please change the subject. Pidge prayed silently

“Do you have any siblings?” 

Goddamnit. Pidge’s train of thought had just crashed and burned in a fiery explosion. This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to be having, but she wanted to be polite. So the green paladin mentally calmed herself and answered. 

“Uh yeah.” She hesitated. “I have an older brother too, his name was Matt.” 

“Was?”

Fuck. Pidge thought over the sound of her internal screaming.

“Uh I mean is. His name is Matt.” She tried to cover up her mistake but it was too late, Elise was already looking at the younger teen in concern.

“Pidge, I know we just met but we’re supposed to be a team right? You can tell me...but if you don’t want to that’s fine too.”

The paladin sighed, there was a long pause before she decided to speak up. “Y’know how Shiro went on the Kerberos mission and went missing?” Elise nodded, Pidge taking a breath before continuing. “The reason he went missing was because he got captured by the Galra. My...my father and Matt were with him. Shiro managed to escape but-”

“But they didn’t.” Elise finished. Pidge drew her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly.

“I have no idea where they are, or if they’re still…” the paladin was too afraid to finish the sentence. They sat in complete silence for what seemed like forever.

“When we found Rinya, we promised her that we would do everything we could to get her back.” Elise said, tipping her head up to look at the ceiling. “In order to do that, we had to run away from home. I just left note for my family and took off.” she laughed bitterly. 

“I promised I would be back in a couple days. But now I probably won’t see them for a long time. I can’t even call to tell them I’m safe. They must be worried out of their minds and I just left them with a fucking note.”

Pidge placed her hand on the core’s shoulders “We’re going to see our families again. I know it. I have to believe that.” 

“Yeah.” Elise smiled. The two turned around when they heard the sound of heavy footsteps approach them. Hunk appeared two seconds later, grinning.

“Hey guys! Dinner’s ready.” Hunk said.

“You go ahead, I’m not that hungry.” Pidge waved him away and got back to her work.

“Are you sure? It’s not food goo and we worked really hard on it.”

Pidge stood up, excited. “You mean real food?! Why didn’t you say so!” Pidge dashed out the door and ran to the dining hall.

“C’mon, I’ll show you the way.” Hunk offered.

“Thanks” Elise smiled "...Quick question, what’s food goo?”


	9. First Impressions

After defeating the sparring robot for the fourth time, Keith decided to take a little break. He wiped the sweat off his brow and took huge gulps of water. His mind was still racing from the events that happened earlier. He only found out a few days ago about cores, and in the span of not even a single day he went back to earth, found an Altean and three girls in the blue lion cave who, surprise, turned out to be the cores and took them to the castle, found out that Coran has a niece, fought the Galra, and discovered that one of the cores was actually an alien in disguise who almost died. So yeah, it had been a pretty long day. Keith heard footsteps from down the hallway, he turned to find Rinya walking past the entrance to the training deck.

“Rinya!” The red paladin called out, Rinya stopped walking for Keith to jog over to her.

“How’s Dulcet? She gonna be ok?” He asked, hoping to spark a conversation.

“She’s fine. She just needs to rest is all.” The Altean girl replied curtly, and Keith could tell that she was in a bad mood, but he tried being friendly anyways.

“That’s good...so...do you wanna spar with me?” Keith offered more awkwardly than he intended.

“No. I’m going to eat, dinner’s ready.” She turned and started to walk off. 

The paladin called out to her again. “Hey, is something wrong?”

Once again she stopped walking, she didn’t turn around to face him. 

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything is just fine.” Rinya said coldly; Now he definitely something was wrong.

“Ok, It’s been a long day, and you’re tired. I get it. But sooner or later we need to talk and get to know each other.”

“Why?”

“You’re the red core, and I’m the red paladin, we need to get along so that we can-”

Rinya whipped around and glared at Keith, stopping him in his tracks.

“I don’t need to do anything! Especially with you! I don’t know what the red lion was thinking, but you’re not a paladin. You’re not worthy of piloting the lion. You’re not worthy of replacing him!” With that, she ran away from him, this time ignoring as he shouted her name. 

Keith just stared at the place the Altean had been mere moments before. Not worthy of replacing him? What does that mean? Keith asked himself, standing there for a little longer before walking slowly towards the dining hall.


	10. Rest and Recovery

Everyone had things to feel bad about, things that they didn’t tell people until they were forced to or they forced themselves to, and for Lance it was things he locked away inside; things that if given time, could fester and revert into a possible mental illness. He obviously felt horrible for what he did to Dulcet, but it was much deeper than that, far deeper. Lance hated failure. Failure had always been an enemy of his, and enemy that chose to belittle and beat him when he was alone and didn’t let up until he was around others where he had to put on an invisible mask to be who everyone thought he was. The blue paladin stayed in his quarters for what the others thought to be hours, until he finally decided he should go check on Dulcet, just to make sure his actions didn’t result in her demise

The blue paladin made his way to the room adjoined to his, the room that was always locked until now, where he remembered Rinya had taken Dulcet to; y’know, after the feisty altean punched him square in the jaw. He was happy to find that aside from the sleeping Aruvi, the room was completely empty of a certain altean; it was empty of anyone and everyone else on the castle-ship. Dulcet was still fast asleep on the bed, though it was hard to tell with the mask on her face. 

Lance sat down on the stool near the bed. “M’sorry for hurting you. I didn't mean to, I was just so excited to have my lion’s ice powers back, I didn't realize that using it so much could hurt you..”

“Mmpphh..izz too early to be awake..” The Aruvi mumbled, half asleep and completely unaware of the fact that her illusion had fizzed away.

Lance froze; Shit, did I wake her up?!

“You..yer Lance, right?” Dulcet asked as she sat up slightly, yawning.

“Um..yeah.” The blue paladin replied, trying to seem calm. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy..and my head’s a little fuzzy.” The Aruvi rubbed her head, glancing at her purple hand and freezing for a second. “Ls ufxp..” [Oh fuck] 

“What?”

“Ufxp!!Gsrh rh yzw, gsrh rh ivzoob ivzoob yzw! Gsvb pmld R'n mlg..gsvb pmld R orvw, ls tlwh..” [Fuck!! This is bad, this is really really bad! They know I'm not..they know I lied, oh gods…] Dulcet was panicking; this wasn't supposed to happen, now everyone knew her secret!

“Hey, woah woah,” Lance tried his best to be comforting, though it wasn't his field of expertise nowadays. “It's gonna be okay, but if you want me to help you then you’ve gotta speak in english, otherwise I can’t understand you.”

“Ls, hliib...I mean, sorry.” Dulcet corrected herself, glancing down at her hands. “You guys must have been pretty shocked when my illusion fizzed out..”

Lance shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, trying his best to comfort the girl as unbeknownst to the blue core and paladin, the red core had been listening to everything from behind a corner, deciding on whether or not to go in and talk to either Lance or Dulcet. For now she just listened silently, arms folded as she took in their words. Everything is fine, Rinya smiled a little, pushing herself away from the wall and exiting the room.

“A little, yeah, but it’s okay.” Lance gave her a small smile. “Everyone has something they hide from others, besides, you look hotter this way.” he said followed by winking and finger guns.

“Uhhhhh…..thanks? But, you’re not my type.” Dulcet replied awkwardly.

“Oh? Well then what is your type?”

“Not you.”

“Be more specific.”

“Alright then, my type is green.”

“Green..?”

“Yes.”

“So like..does that mean you like green eyes? Or do you like people who wear green? Or is it the green core? The green paladin?”

“You’ll never know~” Dulcet giggled, stretching a bit as she started to get up, tripping over her tail and crashing onto Lance, who was quick to catch her. “Thanks, heh..”

“No problem, always gotta help a damsel in distress.”

“Hey lovebirds!” Hunk teased from the doorway. “Dinner is ready, and it isn’t space goo.”

“Um….I don’t like him like that.” Dulcet replied, stepping a little bit away from Lance. “And what’s space goo?”

“It’s something you’ll learn to tolerate.” Lance chuckled as the three of them left the room and started heading toward the dining room where everyone else had gathered.


	11. Don’t Cry Over Spilled Food Goo

Hunk, Lance and Dulcet walked into the dining hall to find that no one was missing. Abby was describing the food to Coran, who fiddled with his mustache as he listened intently. Keith, Shiro and Pidge looked at the food with excitement, clearly happy it wasn’t green goo. Elise on the other hand was staring at the food in horror and slight disgust.

“Elise, what’s wrong?” Dulcet asked as she approached her close friend, tapping them on the shoulder.

“Oh hey, you’re awake?” Elise turned to the Aruvi, glad to see Dulcet was alright.

“Yeah, I’m fine now.” 

“Good to hear, we were all really worried to find you’d fainted.”

“Mmhmm...m’sorry for lying to you, to Abby, to everyone..”

“Hey, it’s alright.” Elise gave her friend a small smile. “You obviously had your reasons to keep your identity a secret, and I respect that. It’s completely fine.”

“Dulcet!” The girl jumped at the sound of her name, turning to find Abby staring at her, wide-eyed.

“H-hey Abby, I know you’re mad at me for keeping it a secret, but I had to, and I’m sor-” She didn’t get the chance to finish, Abby ran up to her and tackled her into a hug; it was an awkward one due to their height difference, but it was a hug all the same.

“Dulcet! I was so worried! Please don’t do something like that again!” The Aruvi could hear her friend’s voice tremble, it sounded like she was crying.

“You’re not upset?”

“Upset?!” Abby broke the hug and stared at her. “Of course I’m upset! You almost died! You’re my friend, Dulcet! It doesn’t matter if you’re an alien, ‘cause after all, you’d have to be a weirdo in order to friends with someone like me.”

The Aruvi smiled widely at that, looking over toward the head of the table. Allura and Coran had sat down, along with any of the other more serious members of Voltron, and soon everyone was seated, cores across from their respective paladins.

“This looks...great!” Allura said, forcing out the last word.

“Ok, I know it looks weird, but Abby and I worked really hard on it to make it taste kinda like earth food.” Hunk reassured.

“Thanks you two, we really appreciate the work you put into this.” Shiro said before reluctantly putting a slice of cube-cumber on his plate.

“Before we start, I have something to say.” Rinya stood up from the table.

“Lance.” The Altean said in a stern tone, which made the blue paladin jump. “What you did today was selfish and careless.”

“Rinya…” Shiro warned, but she ignored him and continued.

“But…it looks like you solved it between you two. And I may have been a bit harsh on you earlier, so I’m s...s-so...I’m sor…” Rinya seemed to struggle with that last word, while others stared at her confused, Coran stood up wide eyed.

“Rinya...are you trying to apologize?!” He said in disbelief, the girl didn’t look him in the eye.“Holy quiznak! You are apologizing!” 

“So?” Pidge asked.

“So?!” Coran cried “This girl won’t admit she’s sorry for the end of the world! You have no idea how mind-boggling this is!”

“Shut up, Uncle Coran.” She muttered, Lance blinking in surprise, but he quickly recovered from shock as a smirk appeared on his face; He stood up and faced Rinya.

“Alright, I’ll accept your lame excuse of an apology on one condition.” The cocky paladin told her, pointing a single finger to prove his point.

“And what is that?” Rinya asked through gritted teeth, trying her best not to punch him...again.

“This.” 

Lance grabbed a spoonful of the pink lasagna jello and flung it at the Altean. Before she could dodge, the food landed on the side of her face and splattered all over her hair. Everyone gasped, Lance grinned, satisfied with the result. For a few seconds Rinya stood still in shock, she then placed a hand on her messy cheek. 

“You little…” She growled, glaring at Lance.

“Now we’re even.” Lance childishly stuck out his tongue at her.

“Oh yeah? Well take this!” She grabbed a handful of green food goo and threw it as hard as she could at him; Unfortunately, not only did her attack hit Lance, but it hit Pidge and Keith as well.

“Woops, I didn’t mean to hit you Pidge.” She said

“Hey! You hit me too! Don’t I deserve an apology?!” Keith exclaimed.

“Nope. I didn’t mean to hit you, but you probably deserved it.”

“Why you..” Keith swiftly took a few slices of cube-cumber and chucked it at Rinya, but she was ready for it. She ducked at the last second, and the flying vegetable slapped Abby in the face instead.

“Oh crap! Sorry, Abby! I didn’t mean-” But Keith’s apology was cut short.

“FOOD FIGHT!!” Pidge hollered, and all hell broke loose. 

Food began to fly from every direction, staining the walls, the table, and even the ceiling. No one was safe from the attacks, everyone looked like a complete mess, dodging someone’s throw while retaliating with their own. While the attacks were merciless, they weren’t vicious. In fact, everyone seemed to be laughing and having a good time. Everyone except the cooks that is.

“Really. We go through all the trouble to make the food taste like the food on earth, and you guys start a food fight like toddlers?” Hunk asked the group.

“Yes, yes we do.” Lance replied smugly, dodging some green goo that flew in his direction. “C’mon Hunk, let your inner child loose~!”

“YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!!!!!” A voice exploded, and at that moment everyone froze, turning in the direction where the voice was coming from. They were extremely shocked to find that it came from Abby, who was glaring at Lance. 

“DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA HOW MUCH TIME AND EFFORT WE TOOK INTO MAKING THAT FOOD?!?!?!?! IT TOOK FUCKING FOREVER!!! AND NOW YOU’RE THROWING IT AROUND LIKE A FUCKING CHILD!!!!”

“H-hey Abby, calm down.” Shiro said. 

Everyone was very surprised at her sudden outburst, in the amount of time they had known her, they had gotten the impression that the small girl was goofy but kind and sweet, not this tiny ball of pure anger that was on a rampage before them.

“No Shiro, I will not calm down. It’s been a long-ass day and I’m fucking exhausted. I’m so scared and confused right now, but instead of freaking out about it I decide to actually be useful for once and make dinner. But NOOOOOOO, you guys just had to throw it away!” She stood there, her hands were clenched, and her arms trembled.

Dulcet, who had only barely been participating, went over and picked up Abby like she weighed nothing at all. “I get what you’re saying, but you need to relax. Everything will be just fine..”

Hot tears started to pour out of Abby’s eyes. “I’m so sorry...I…” 

Somehow she broke away from Dulcet’s embrace, and ran out of the room, and for the longest time no one said a word, No one seemed to know how to break the silence. Finally, it was Keith who spoke up.

“What was that?” He asked, confused mainly because he’d only known the cores for a short time. “She was so cheerful and happy before...what happened?”

“Abby tends to...bottle up her insecurities and negative emotions.” Elise explained. “Making jokes and being goofy is her way of hiding or coping with them. Usually she suppresses them until she feels better, but when she’s under a lot of pressure or stress..things tend to set her off and she just...yeah..”

Dulcet nodded in agreement “She doesn’t burst that often, but today..things have been so crazy that I guess she just couldn’t keep things bottled up anymore..”

“We all have different ways of coping I guess…” Pidge said, and everyone else seemed to agree. 

“Should we go after her?” Hunk asked in concern. 

“No, it’s best to just give her some space. She’s like a baby deer, you have to let her come to you.” Dulcet replied, Elise nodding in agreement. 

“Yeah, give her some time to herself and she’ll be alright. Besides, Abby tends to-”

Elise was interrupted as Abby came back, carrying her backpack over her shoulder. Her eyes were red from crying, she wouldn’t look at anyone, but they could tell she was calmer than before.

“M’sorry I yelled at you.” She mumbled, still not looking at them. “It’s not your guys’ fault that all this happened. I shouldn’t of taken it out on you guys. I’m really sorry.” She then set her bag on a dry area of the table, opened it, and turned it upside down, letting its content fall out and spill on the table. Now there was a huge pile of junk food; cookies, donuts, chips, candy bars, everything. There was so much of it that it was hard to believe it all fit into her bag; Dulcet sometimes wondered if Abby secretly had Hermione’s bag from Harry Potter. Everyone stared at the pile in awe, some of the paladins were visibly drooling; the main ones being Lance, Hunk, and Pidge. The Alteans, mainly Coran and Allura, looked at the pile with curiosity, Rinya not so much ‘cause she already knew of these junk foods.

“I um, figured that it’s been awhile since you guys have had some real earth food.” Abby scratched the back of her head. “I was gonna save it for later, but now’s a good time too. You can think of it as a sort of peace offering I guess.” she smiled shyly. 

“Wait, you’re giving these to us?” Lance asked.

“You realize these will be gone in a matter of minutes, right?” Elise asked, a small smile on her face.

“Yeah well, you guys deserve to have a little taste of home. But you’d better leave some for me!” Abby said, and everyone laughed.

“That’s the good thing about her.” Dulcet said, draping her arm around Abby’s shoulder. “She tends to recover quickly.”

“How the heck did you fit all of that in your backpack?” Shiro arched his eyebrows.

“I have my ways. Now dig in, before I change my mind about this!”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Lance lunged for the Butterfingers and twinkies and shoved them in his pockets. Hunk shoveled handfuls of chips and donut holes in his face before reaching to grab more. Pidge and Keith playfully fought over a bag of mini oreos while Shiro quickly snatched the fruit snacks, wanting to consume the more ‘Healthy’ bits of the snacks. Soon the others joined in the frenzy, grabbing as much as they could before the supply ran out.

“I must say, this primitive food is quite tasty!” Coran said while holding a pringles can, his mustache had a few crumbs in it.

“Oh man, I haven’t had these in so long I think I’m gonna cry.” Hunk said through a mouthful of gummy bears. “Yup, I’m crying.”

“No.Way.” Keith gaped, he snatched a small green box from the pile and stared at it in amazement. “You have Thin Mints?! Guys we got Thin Mints!!”

“Oh heck yes! Pass ‘em over here!” Lance whooped as the red paladin handed him the box.

“Guys, check it out!” Pidge was practically bouncing off the walls from the sugar rush, she somehow managed to stay still long enough to open her mouth, dancing on her tongue was a bunch of blue crystals that popped every so often.

The cores looked at the paladins in amazement, how long had it been since these guys had junk food? Everyone was laughing and smiling just like before, except there was less food-fighting. Shiro suddenly put his hand on Abby’s shoulder, and she turned to face him.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better. Thanks for doing this.” He smiled, the way a proud father would. Abby couldn’t help but smile back.

“This is officially the best apology I’ve ever received.” Hunk said, licking the cheeto dust off his fingers. The other paladins hummed in agreement, unable to speak due to the amount of food stuffed in their cheeks.

“By the way…” Elise said smirking “Abby, where’s the rest of your stash?”

“Like I’m telling you.” Abby stuck her tongue out. The paladins’ jaws dropped to the floor.

“Wait, you have more?!”

“Yup, you didn’t think I’d give you all of my food, did you?” Abby puffed out her chest proudly. “I’m saving’ the rest for later. But don’t worry, I’m willing to share with you guys...for a price.”

Everyone kept staring at her in shock, and Abby, Elise and Dulcet bursted out laughing. The new group of friends kept talking and laughing for hours until the junk food pile and the sugar rush (eventually) died down and the castle was peaceful again.


	12. Training Day

Elise woke up to the sound of clanging metal. Her half-asleep mind thought that her alarm clock must've been broken. She shifted from her bed and reached out to turn off the alarm on her nightstand only to find it wasn’t there, so she reached out so far that she fell out of bed and onto the floor; that woke her up in more ways than one. She was laying on a cold, smooth surface instead of the fuzzy material that carpeted her bedroom floor, she wasn’t home. She was in an alien castle/ship in space probably thousands of lightyears away from earth. Elise tried to rub the sleepiness out of her eyes, convincing herself that exhaustion was the cause of her watery eyes. The sound that woke her up was getting closer, traveling down the hallway. As it grew closer and louder, Elise could hear a voice accompanied by the racket.

“Wake up everyone! Rise and Shine! It’s a perfect day to start your vigourous training that’ll make you so tired you won’t be able to move tomorrow. Isn’t that fun?!” 

Elise groaned, she got up, put on her glasses. The core opened her door to find Coran strolling down the corridor banging pots and pans together and hollering for everyone to get up.

“Coran, what are you doing?” The Altean turned at the sound of his name, he then grinned widely.

“Oh good morning Elise! Isn’t it obvious that I’m waking you all up? Training starts early today! Well actually, training starts early every day but you know what I mean. Anyways, get dressed quick! You don’t wanna waste any time now do you?”

“Of course not.” Elise grumbled to herself before closing the doors. 

While changing into her core uniform, Elise heard a huge thump from nextdoor. Seemed like Abby was awake. After briefly eating breakfast at the dining hall (which was still messy from last night’s food fight), the green core went to the training deck where Allura, Shiro, and some of the other paladins were already gathered. The rest streamed in one by one until Abby was the last to arrive. You could tell she was still sleepy, her amber eyes were half open and she was yawning every thirty seconds. She also had the worst bed-head out of the entire group, her dark brown hair poofed up wildly in every direction. Elise could tell everyone was trying not to laugh at Abby’s new hairdo, and Abby knew it too. She was just too tired to care.

“Alright everyone, listen up.” Allura said in a commanding tone. “Today we are going to start a new kind of training. I’m going to ask you to do many difficult tasks that over time you will strengthen your body to be able to handle the strain of being a core as well as combat.” she said, looking at the new additions of their crew.

“I’m also going to teach you guys how to manipulate your energy.” Rinya added. “That way, you can control how much you give to the lion.”

“For now, we’re going to do a physical assessment so that we know your strengths and weaknesses. That way, we can give you individual workouts to help you improve the areas that need some work.” Shiro finished.

Elise groaned inwardly. She hated exercise. Sure she’d do it if she had to, but it’s not like she was any good at it. However, she was determined to try her best, she had to after all. Elise nodded alongside Abby and Dulcet, Shiro smiled.

“Ok then, let’s get started.”

As expected, the training sucked. Not only was it exhausting for Elise, but it was also humiliating. It felt like everyone was watching her with high expectations only to see her fail spectacularly over and over again. The core knew this wasn’t true, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was letting everyone down. It didn’t help that she was doing it alongside her friends so they could see how bad she was compared to them.

Being a warrior, Rinya was in excellent shape. She was strong and agile, and she didn’t get tired as easily as everyone else. While Dulcet wasn’t that strong, she was very, very fast. The Aruvi could run 8-minute miles without much difficulty, Elise wondered if it had something to do with her biology. Who knows, maybe the tail helped. Abby on the other hand, was incredibly slow. Even Elise managed to run faster than her. But the yellow core ran longer than the rest of them, she may not have been fast, but she had lots of stamina. And much to everyone’s surprise, Abby was incredibly strong for her small size, somehow she managed to lift more weight than Rinya, who looked more fit than all of the cores combined. 

But Elise? She hadn’t been good at anything. She lifted the least amount of weights, her time for running was the second slowest, and she was only barely more flexible than Abby, who couldn't even touch her toes. Elise felt terrible, she was letting everyone down. After a few hours they finally took a break. While everyone else chatted while getting sweat towels and water bottles, Elise sat by herself, too ashamed to face them. Shiro noticed this and walked over to her.

“Hey, are you ok?” He asked.

“M’fine.” She tried to smile, but Elise could tell that he didn’t buy it.  
“C’mon, what’s wrong? You can tell me.”

Elise sighed. “It’s just that...Abby, Dulcet and Rinya are all good at something and I’m...not. I feel like I’m letting everyone down.”

“You’re not letting everyone down, everyone has things they aren’t good at.”

“Yeah but the only thing I’m good at is reading, drawing and watching TV, and none of those will do any good in this situation.”

“Oh that’s not true! I’m sure there are other things you’re good at!”

“Ok everyone, break time’s over!” Allura said while clapping her hands, gaining everyone’s attention. 

“Uh...hey Shiro? I’m not...feeling well. Could I maybe sit out for these next few exercises.” Elise asked, she knew that it was a lame excuse, but she didn’t want to go out there again, not when she was feeling like this.

The black paladin’s gaze softened, he seemed to understand what she was thinking. “Of course you can, please come back out when you feel better, all right?” 

Elise nodded, Shiro patted her shoulder one last time before standing up and walking to where everyone else gathered. A few members of the team would glance back at her with concerned expressions, so Elise would flash them a fake smile so they wouldn’t worry. It seemed to do the trick. The day seemed to pass by quickly after that, everyone trained and Elise watched. Around what seemed to be about noon, they started to play a weird version of capture the flag, but instead of flags they had weird floating crystals. The training room now looked like a mix between a paintball & laser tag arena, with lots of small walls to hide for cover and two bases at the end of each room. Once again Shiro invited Elise to join in, but she kindly refused.

With Allura and Shiro as team captains, they quickly formed teams with Keith, Dulcet and Abby on Shiro’s team and Pidge, Rinya, Lance and Hunk on Allura’s team. The paladins weren’t allowed to use their bayards, so they had to use physical combat. To make up for the lack of a team member, Shiro’s team was allowed to have a sparring robot set on a low level to guard their crystal. Once everything was set up, the games began shortly afterwards. They played 5 rounds, and Team Allura won every time. The first game, Team Shiro had been destroyed, The combination of Pidge and Allura’s strategy had demolished them, and it didn’t help that the sparring robot was practically useless. As time went on, the battles became more evenly matched, Team Shiro would get close to capturing their crystal only to be beaten to it by the opposite team. The green core got frustrated just watching it. Finally Elise couldn’t take it any longer, she sat up and marched over to where Team Shiro had gathered. 

“Elise, how are you feeling?” Shiro asked once he noticed that she was approaching.

“Better, thanks.” She mumbled, she kicked aside the sparring robot’s arm, which had fallen off for the fourth time.

“So what’s our strategy this time?” Keith said half enthusiastically, not happy about the fact that Lance and Rinya keep rubbing their victory in his face. 

“Actually...I have an idea for that.” Elise said and everyone turned to face her. Suddenly very nervous, the core stopped speaking altogether. Shiro noticed this and gave her silent encouragement, she swallowed the ball of nerves in her throat and spoke again.

“Um...from what I’ve seen, you guys keep forgetting that your opponents aren’t entirely made up of humans.”

“What do you mean by that?” Dulcet tilted her head, confused.

“Well, Allura and Rinya are Altean, right? So that means they can shape shift. I’m not sure if you guys could tell, but they were changing their sizes so that they could become bigger and stronger, that’s why they keep beating you guys one-on-one.” A look of realization passed over their faces as Elise said this, they nodded in agreement to what she was saying.

“Ok, that’s good to know, but I don’t see how that helps us.” Keith said.

“You guys aren’t seeing the bigger picture here: we need to stop treating everyone as a whole and start seeing that everyone has their own set of unique skills. Instead of thinking that everyone has the same abilities, you need to think about individuals and what their strengths and weaknesses are.”

“Alright, what you’re saying makes sense, but how do we apply that to us?” Shiro asked while frowning thoughtfully.

“You guys still don’t get it. Team Allura may have some aliens on their team but…” Elise grinned and spread her arms. “So do we.” She said and soon she told them of her plan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After much discussion of Elise’s new strategy, Team Shiro prepared themselves for battle, this time more energized than ever before.

“Alright everyone listen up!” Coran’s voice boomed from the speakers overhead, he was the coach as well as the commentator for this event. “This will be the last round before we take a lunch break. This time instead of having the sparring robot, Team Shiro will have Elise on their team.”

Shiro patted Elise’s shoulder as her name was called, she gave him a nervous smile.

“Ok, on your marks, get set, GO!” When Coran gave the signal, Keith dashed for the opposing team’s crystal with Elise behind him, they weaved through the maze of walls that made up the arena. Shiro and Abby stood guard over their crystal, waiting anxiously for their enemy’s move. Soon, Hunk, Lance and Rinya appeared from the maze and immediately started attacking.

“Sorry Shiro, Abby. Nothing personal.” Hunk stated as he lunged for the crystal, Hunk was large but very clumsy, so Shiro easily managed to hold him back. Abby on the other hand, was having a bit more difficulty. She was holding a stance similar to that of a basketball player, shuffling and sidestepping everywhere Lance was, the blue paladin found her efforts amusing.

“Normally I don’t like hitting kids but that’s life I guess.” Lance sighed dramatically as he tried to hit Abby.

“For the last time, I’m not a kid! You’re only one year older than me!” She said while dodging and giving an attack of her own.

“What?!” Lance said in disbelief, barely blocking her attack. “You don’t look a day older than Pidge.”

“I know.” 

In his confusion, Lance had briefly dropped his guard, and Abby took the opportunity to tackle the paladin to the ground, using her weight against him. Lance got the wind knocked out of him as he hit the ground hard, he was momentarily dazed from the impact and couldn’t find the strength to get up. Abby quickly stood up and ran to Shiro’s side, where the two of them were about to face Rinya.

Meanwhile, Keith and Elise were having difficulty capturing the enemy’s crystal with Pidge and Allura guarding it. Pidge was small and agile while Allura had shape shifted to be large and full of muscle, the two combined made an excellent defense, where one person lacked the other person more than made up for. When Allura wasn’t fast enough to hit Keith and Elise with heavy attacks, Pidge would come in to deal fast ones to throw them off balance, and when those light attacks weren’t enough, Allura came in to knock them back. It was impossible to reach the crystal. It was a good thing that that wasn’t their goal in the first place. 

All of a sudden, the arena lit up, indicating a team had won the game. Pidge and Allura high-fived each other to celebrate their victory. Then, the walls disappeared, giving them a clear view of the other base on the opposite side of the room. There, they could clearly see that Team Shiro’s crystal was still floating within it’s glowing circle, where it was supposed to be. Pidge and Allura’s smiles faltered as they realized that the victory wasn’t theirs, they whipped around to find that it was their crystal that was missing.

“What?! That’s impossible! There’s no way you could've gotten it!” Pidge exclaimed.

“How did you do it?” Allura asked in awe.

“I think you guys cheated! Where is the crystal anyway?!” Lance said, he had recovered from Abby’s tackle just in time for to hear the victory bells, everyone else had gathered around Elise and Keith, either to celebrate their winning or to hear an explanation.

“We didn’t cheat Lance. In fact, we used the same strategy you did.” Elise smirked, and her team smirked with her.

“Oh? And what strategy is that?” Allura asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Using our unique biology to our advantage.” 

Everyone jumped. The voice appeared out of thin air, manifesting without a body to match. Then, right where the voice seemed to be coming from, the scenery began to shift and twist like one of those mirrors you see at a carnival, then the image shattered entirely to reveal Dulcet holding the crystal in her hand with a smug look on her face.

“You...you tricked us!” Pidge squawked, she pointed at Elise and Keith. “You were just distracting us so that Dulcet could get the crystal!”

“Yup.” Elise grinned.

“An excellent strategy.” said Allura. “While I hate to admit it, this victory belongs to you, Shiro.” 

“Thanks, but it doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to Elise.” Shiro put his hand on the core’s shoulder and smiled at her proudly. “She was the one to come up with the strategy.”

“Yeah, we never would of thought to use Dulcet’s camouflage otherwise.” Abby nodded with Shiro in agreement. 

Keith patted Elise on the back and flashed her a brief smile, a rare sight to be seen from the paladin. Elise’s seemed to glow with pride, she had done this, she had won the day.

“Yeah yeah ok, you won.” Lance said reluctantly “But couldn’t you gone a little easy on me Abby? I think I got a bruise on my back. He complained.

“Sorry I guess. But it was either that or I was gonna knee ya in the crotch, I had to take ya down somehow.” Abby shrugged. This made every male in the room wince. 

“Well, that was fun, but can we eat now? I’m starving!” Hunk exclaimed, and everyone laughed. 

Together, the group left the training deck and headed to the kitchen, completely forgetting about the mess they forgot to clean up from the previous night.


	13. Prisoners of War

[Time skip because I’m lazy,]

It hadn’t even been an hour since Allura’s capture and everyone was already panicking. Abby chewed on her nails as she often did when she was nervous and worried, Elise kept tapping her fingers in a desperate attempt to tame her nervous energy that was usually suppressed by her ADHD medication. Dulcet was curled up in a corner, and Rinya was hugging her, doing her best to calm her down, the paladins were all busy trying to find a way to save Allura, but it was obvious they were worried too. But out of all of them, Coran was freaking out the most. When he first heard the news he nearly fainted from hyperventilating, now he was pacing back and forth, a grim expression on his face. 

“Pidge, anything?” Shiro asked anxiously.

“Yeah. Guys, check this out.” The green paladin replied, she pulled up a holographic image of the Galra’s central command. Everyone gaped at it’s size.

“It’s huge!” Abby exclaimed, pointing out the obvious.

"I think we should go in right away. Every minute we waste gives Zarkon time to prepare for us." Pidge stated.

“I agree, we form Voltron, fly in, fly out, dust off our hands and walk away.” Lance said.

“Um, do you guys not remember the Balmera?” Hunk asked “We could barely take out a fleet but this...a base this size could hold a thousand fleets!”

“Not to mention that we have three people who have no idea what the hell they’re doing! We’re not ready for something like this!” Elise shouted.

“I know you guys are scared and this is all overwhelming, but we have to do this.” Shiro said firmly.

“Or maybe we shouldn’t go on this mission at all. Think about it. We’ll be delivering the universe’s only hope to the universe’s biggest enemy.” Keith stated.

“Are you saying we should just abandon her?! To just let her be Zarkon’s prisoner?!” Rinya had left Dulcet’s side and ran to face Keith, glaring at him with fire in her eyes.

“I’m not saying I like the idea. I’m just trying to think like a paladin.”

“A real paladin doesn’t think like that! They try to do what’s right until the bitter end! What you’re doing isn’t right, it’s selfish!” Rinya spat, venom laced in every word.

“Okay, we’re all upset because we lost Allura.” Pidge tried to calm her quarreling teammates.

“No, Shiro lost Allura!” Coran yelled.

“Coran!” Abby gasped.

“Okay, okay! This isn’t helping! We can’t just sit here and bicker like this.” Hunk said.

“Let’s focus.” Shiro said firmly. “How are we going to get Allura?” The black paladin stared at his team as they began to think up of ideas.

“Well, for starters, we should pull up any information we know about this base, like defenses or when shipments are scheduled to come in and things like that.” Elise suggested, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

The black paladin nodded. “That’s a good idea. Everyone needs to put their heads together for this one, we’re going to find Allura.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After much discussion and Coran’s breakthrough, they had created a solid plan in order to rescue the princess. It was simple really, wormhole to the base to catch the Galra by surprise, form Voltron, fight against maybe hundreds of thousands of Galran ships, find and rescue Allura, get to the Castle and wormhole away. Simple right?

Shiro knew this mission was going to be especially tough for the cores, other than Rinya, they had very little experience and training. The paladins at least had some time to adjust to their new duties, but those three didn’t. Elise, Dulcet and Abby had been thrusted into the middle of this war with little time to take it all in. They had no idea how frightening the Galra could be, how ruthless and bloodthirsty they were. This was their first real battle and it would be the hardest one any of them had ever faced. But despite all that, the cores were still determined to keep fighting. Shiro knew they were scared, but he didn’t know how scared until it was almost time for the mission

The black paladin had ordered everyone to their lions so they could attack as soon as they got within range. Soon, everyone had quickly assembled in the hangars and were strapping in for take off...everyone except Dulcet. Shiro noticed her absence and went to search for her, he found the girl in the hallway standing a few feet from the hangar entrance. The Aruvi was leaning against the wall drawing quick, shaky breaths. Her legs and tail trembled as she stood frozen and unmoving.

Oh god she’s having a panic attack Shiro thought as he rushed to her side.

“Shh shh, everything’s okay...you’re okay...” He said soothingly, trying to hide the fear in his voice as he reached out to touch her shoulder in an act of comfort, but as soon as he did the girl flinched and Shiro instantly drew back. “Sorry.” He said quickly. “I can get someone else to stay with you to help you calm down, but I’m not going to leave you here alone.”

“You’re...fine…” Dulcet said between breaths. “It’s just...your hand…it feels like...like theirs.”

“My hand?” Shiro looked at the hand that had been on her shoulder moments before, he silently cursed at himself. 

He had used his right hand. The very same hand that, along with his arm, had been taken by the Druids and replaced with a robotic one that was probably the same model as the ones other Galran soldiers used out there. Rinya had mentioned before that Dulcet’s species, the Aruvi, were under Zarkon’s rule and were treated like slaves. No wonder she had reacted to Shiro’s gesture that way.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Would it be ok if I use my other hand?” The paladin asked. 

Dulcet hesitated before giving a small nod. Shiro carefully placed his hand on her shoulder, this time using his left one. This seemed to calm the core down, she began to draw slower and deeper breaths, but he could still feel her shaking. Shiro had been briefly trained at the Garrison how to handle these kinds of situations, but he never thought he’d have to actually use what he learned.

“Now, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Dulcet turned to face him. It was hard to read her expression due to the mask over her eyes.

“I...I want to save Allura, I really do but…” She choked out. Shiro could see that tears were forming beneath her mask as they streamed down her purple cheeks. “But I...I don’t want to go! I’m scared, Shiro! I can’t go back! I can’t…but Allura…” Dulcet crouched down and hugged her legs close to her chest, burying her face. “I just don’t know what to do!” She sobbed, her whole was body trembling.

“You were their prisoner.” Shiro realized, he crouched down next to her and started to gently rub her back. “How long were you there?”

“I don’t know...weeks? Months?” She sniffed, still hiding her face.

“That must of been very hard for you, I’m sorry. You were very brave to survive that long.” He said. 

Shiro wanted to ask her why she had been a Galran prisoner, Coran had told him that the Aruvis were used for slave labour on their own planet to collect resources and that they weren’t normally kept as prisoners. Shiro wondered why they would keep her prisoner, but he thought it would be better to leave that for another time.

“I don’t need your pity. It won’t do me any good.” She said bitterly.

“It’s not pity, I know how you feel, I...I was their captive for a year.” Dulcet lifted her head when she heard this.

“You were? For a whole year?” She asked.

Shiro nodded. 

“I’m sorry.” Dulcet murmured.

“Don’t be. I’m here now.” After that, a long pause of silence fell over them, it wasn’t an uncomfortable one, at least not to Shiro. 

The black paladin sighed. “I understand how hard it must be, going back to a place that did horrible things to you. But we have to do this. I don’t want to go back there either, but if we want to save Allura, we have to go there.” 

“I get that..I just don’t know if my mind can handle it..” The Aruvi mumbled in reply.

“If I could, I would let you stay in the castle. That way you wouldn’t have to be dealing with this.” Shiro said softly. “But I’m sorry, you have to go out there and fight. We need you with us. You can think of this as revenge if you want, whatever it takes for you to get through this. But you have to do this, for everyone’s sake.”

Dulcet sat on the floor in silence, the world seemed to slow down as her mind raced. Finally she wiped away her tears and spoke. “Ok, I’ll do it...for Allura.”

“Good.” Shiro stood up and offered his hand to help her up; she took it and hoisted herself up.

“Are you going to be ok out there?” The paladin asked with concern.

Dulcet met his gaze. “Are you? You’re going through the same thing.”

The question took Shiro by surprise, he blinked before smiling.

“I’ll be fine. I have you and everyone else to help me get through it.”

“Yeah.” Dulcet agreed while smiling. “Let’s go kick some Galra butt.”


	14. Broken Bonds

As soon as they had teleported within range, Shiro had issued the command to form Voltron. It had been so long since Rinya had done it that she had almost forgotten what it felt like. As the last lion transformed and connected, the core felt a familiar, electric shock of being linked to the mighty warrior. Rinya could sense the other cores’ energy flowing into one central point, as if they were arteries pumping blood into the very heart of Voltron, the black lion. Because the cores were sharing their energy, they had a much deeper connection than the paladins did. A core could sense what the others were feeling and if they were mentally stable or not. Rinya could easily tell that the cores were out of sync, she could feel how scared and confused they were. This was not going to be an easy battle.

“Hey...are you guys ok?” Hunk’s voice sounded worried over the comms.

“We’re...fine.” Rinya said, she hadn’t realized that she was out of breath until she started talking. “It’s just that fueling Voltron is a little more intense than fueling a single lion. I’m a bit out of practice is all.”

“A little more intense?!” Abby cried. “We’ve only formed Voltron for thirty seconds and I’m already tired!” The other cores grunted in agreement.

“Are you sure you guys are ok?” Shiro asked.

“Yes. It’ll get easier the more we train, for now we just have to bear with it.” RInya firmly stated

None of them liked hearing that, but they had no other option. Soon the giant metal warrior had plunged into battle, destroying Galra ships by the dozen, slowly making their way closer to the base. 

All of a sudden a light envelops Voltron and a sharp wave of pain shot through Rinya’s body, it was as if all the energy she had given was being sent back at her in the form of red-hot shrapnel flying at the speed of light. The only thing that kept Rinya from passing out in exhaustion was the pain, and as it slowly ebbed away she was finding it harder and harder to remain conscious. 

“Is everyone alright?” Keith asked

“I’ll let you know once the world stops spinning.” Abby groaned.

“Hey Elise, you ok? What’s wrong?” Pidge’s voice was full of worry for the core.

“I feel fantastic.” Elise replied sleepily. “G’night” A loud thunk echoed over the comms.

“Aaand she’s asleep.” Pidge informed the team.

“Nighty night.” Dulcet murmured drowsily

“No no no no Dulcet you can’t sleep now!” Lance cried.

“Bitch watch me.” The Aruvi said, then they heard the sound of her soft and steady breathing, indicating that she too had fainted from exhaustion.

“What about you, Rinya?” Keith asked, for some reason the question ticked her off

“I’m fine. I’m in agonizing pain and about to pass out, but fine, thanks for asking.” the core replied dryly. 

The cores and paladins hardly had any time to recover, soon Galra ships came streaming out of the base to attack, they barely escaped the first wave attacks before countering with their own, the lions no longer connected were scattered around the base. 

“What do we do now guys? Our plan isn’t really working as...well, planned!” Hunk exclaimed

“You guys get the Princess without me.” Keith said, determined.

“What? We’ve got to stick together! What are you doing?” Lance cried

“What I can.”

“Keith.” Abby said, her voice a drowsy slurr. “Be careful ok? I don’t think Rinya can take much more.”

“Speak for yourself.” Rinya muttered, even though she knew it was true.

“I will.” And with that, Keith sped off, slicing Galra ships with the jawblade as he passed by. 

After destroying things and wreaking chaos for a while, a lone Galran soldier appeared before them wearing dark red armor. 

“Woah! Who is that?” Keith asked. 

Rinya knew who it was, she could never forget that face. She couldn’t forget how stoic his expressions were or how calm and commanding his voice was. She couldn’t forget how much she looked up to him, or how hard she worked to be like him if only by a little. And she could never forget how it felt when she learned what he had done, how easily he had shattered her trust and her world right in front of her eyes. No, Rinya would never forget Zarkon for as long as she lived.

“It’s Zarkon!” Coran gasped. “Keith, get out of there now! Zarkon’s too powerful!”

“This is my chance to end the Galra empire! I have to take it!” 

“Keith don’t!” Coran cried but it was too late. 

Keith dove towards Zarkon, preparing to attack. The Red Lion shot out an energy beam towards the enemy to no effect, the leader of the Galra formed a purple energy shield to protect him. 

“You may have a lion, but it’s power is weak in your fledgling hands.” Zarkon said cooly.

Keith attacked again and again to no avail, his enemy didn’t have a scratch on him, he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. Zarkon kept transforming his weapon into different forms and attacked with deadly accuracy. 

“You cannot stop me, the Black Lion will finally be returned to its original paladin.”

All of a sudden, Zarkon struck the Red Lion down, Keith and Rinya grunted upon impact, the damage was severe, the red paladin couldn’t get the lion back up again. Then, Zarkon formed a handheld cannon and aimed, ready to fire.

“No!” Keith cried, desperately pushing the throttles forward in an attempt to escape.

Time seemed to slow down for Rinya, the alarms blaring around her sounded muffled, the only thing that the core could hear clearly was her own thoughts.

Is this it? Am I going to die? For some strange reason, the thought made her feel at peace. She began to close her eyes and wait for the inevitable, but something stopped her. A familiar sound kept repeating over and over, each time getting a bit louder, it was her name. Keith was calling out to her.

“Rinya! C’mon don’t faint on me! I need you!” He said, once again, the paladin’s concern irritated her, though she had no idea why.

“Are you an idiot?!” The core screamed. “You’re about to be killed and you’re worrying about me?! How stupid are you?!”   
The conversation was familiar to Rinya, even though she knew that this was the first time talking about this with Keith. She had said that very same sentence many times before. Hearing herself say it left a bittersweet taste on her tongue, and made her heart ache with grief. The person she used to have those conversation with was gone, never again would those familiar lines be heard by him. No. Rinya’s thoughts jolted her back to the present. I can’t die now. The universe depends on us. 

As if it had sensed the core’s newfound determination, the lion sprang to life just in time to avoid Zarkon’s attack. Rinya then channeled what little strength she had left into the lion, she felt heat like a flame grow from her chest and spread down her arms and into the lion. The Red Lion roared and a huge cannon formed on its back, a massive energy beam shot out, blowing up several parts of the base. 

“Woah!” Keith said in amazement. 

If Rinya wasn’t tired before, she was tired now. Every fiber in her being seemed to be screaming in pain and the edge of her vision started turning black, it was a miracle that she was even awake.

“Well this is interesting.” Zarkon said after dodging the blast. “I thought I sensed your presence, but now I’m certain that you’re in there Rinya.”

Keith gasped “How does he know your name?!”

She didn’t answer him, her arms trembled,Rinya wasn’t sure if it was from fear or rage.

“I’m surprised you survived, though Malcolm wasn’t so lucky.” said the Galran emperor.

“What did you do to him?!” Rinya screamed, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.

“I can sense your despair, you want to know what happened? Rest assured he died honorably, I made sure to send him to the afterlife with my own hands.”

Something inside Rinya snapped, she screamed in fury and energy she didn’t know she had surged into the Red Lion and the plasma cannon shot out once more. After that, Rinya’s body went limp and she slowly closed her eyes, the last thing she heard was Keith crying out her name.


	15. The Bond Between Core and Paladin

Rinya woke up to someone vigorously shaking her shoulder and a muffled voice yelling in her ear. The core groaned, her head was throbbing and she felt as if there was acid coursing through her veins. She cautiously opened one eye and winced at the harsh red light around her. As she slowly adjusted her eyes, she could see that it was Keith who woke her.

“Hey, Rinya! Wake up!” He said urgently.

“Five more minutes.” She muttered. 

“Oh thank god.” The paladin let out a huge sigh of relief. “I thought you were dead.”

“Sorry to get your hopes up, but I won’t die that easy.” Rinya groaned. 

She tried to stand up only to topple back into her seat, letting out a small yelp of pain in the process. It felt like every muscle fiber was on fire, searing flames lapping at every inch of her body and leaving her sore as all hell. The amount of effort it took just to stand, was enough to make her head spin and stomach churn.

“Woah, easy.” Keith said cautiously. “You can’t just start walking around.”

“Where are we?” She asked, looking at the walls that projected live footage outside. 

What she saw definitely wasn’t what she thought she would see. It definitely wasn’t the Castle of Lions.

“What happened?”

“After you passed out, we rescued Allura and Shiro got his lion back.” he explained. “But something happened while we were escaping, the wormhole we were in malfunctioned and now we’re all scattered.”

“Great.” Rinya huffed. “I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere with you.”

“Hey!” Keith protested. “I’m not exactly thrilled about this either. Besides, we’re not alone. Shiro’s-” He stopped abruptly, his eyes went wide as if he realized something.

“What is it?”

“Shiro! He must of crash landed somewhere nearby! We have to find him.”

“As much as I’d like to, I can’t. I can barely move as it is, and Red isn’t going to wake up anytime soon. We both need rest.” Rinya said sternly.

“But I can’t just leave you here by yourself!” Keith protested.

“What are you gonna do, carry me? Just go, I’ll be fine. The sooner you leave the better.”

Keith looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t say anything.”

“...Fine.” He said unhappily he turned and started to leave.

“Good, now I can get some peace and quiet. By the way, don’t be surprised if there’s a puddle of vomit when you get back.” Rinya grimaced. 

After hearing this, Keith walked back to the core, and scooped her in his arms without another word.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing!? Let go of me!” She protested, she would hit him if she had the strength to.

“I’m taking you outside, some fresh air will make you feel better. By the way, are you cold? You’re shivering...come to think of it your body feels a bit chilly.”

Quiznak, that’s not good the core thought.

“I’m fine, now let me down!”

“Yeah right, you’re not fine.” Keith said as he stepped out of the lion and surveyed his surroundings. He then set her on the ground and propped her up against the Red Lion.

“Alright, stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“...Why are you doing this?” Rinya muttered, clearly not liking this.

“Huh?” 

“Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because even though you treat me like shit for no good reason, you’re still my partner.” Keith said.

This made Rinya stiffen but she didn’t say anything. The Altean watched silently as the paladin left, once she couldn’t see him anymore, she leaned her head back until it rested against the cool metal surface.

“No good reason huh…” Rinya said, quoting what the paladin had said mere moments before. “He’s probably right, I’ve been a...what did Elise call it again? Oh yeah, a jerk.” he laughed bitterly. 

“I can see why you chose him, Red.” She sighed, addressing the dormant lion beside her. “They’re really similar…”

Rinya then closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, dreaming of memories from long ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About an hour later, the Altean woke up to the sound of the mechanical purr of the Black lion. Soon, she saw Keith and Shiro emerge from the lion, Rinya could tell the black paladin was injured, he had an arm draped over Keith’s shoulder for support and was clutching his side. The two paladins hobbled over to where Rinya was resting.

“I’m glad you’re ok.” She said, relieved.

“I think you’re definition of ok is different than mine.” Shiro grunted as he sat down next to her. “How are you feeling?”

“Not good.” She said, she was covered in sweat and her whole body was shaking. Keith briefly placed his hand on her forehead.

“At least you don’t have a fever.” the red paladin sighed before joining them on the ground.

“So, how do we get out of here?” Rinya asked.

“I don’t know, let’s hope Allura can track us from the castle and will send help soon.” Keith replied.

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence hung around them like a thick fog, they had nothing to discuss, but the silence was driving them crazy. Finally, Keith spoke.

“Hey Rinya, can I ask a question?”

“What is it?” she said, her voice deadpanned from exhaustion.

“Who’s Malcolm?” Rinya’s body became rigid at the question, Keith noticed her reaction but he decided to take a risk and push further. “He was the original red paladin, right? Your old partner?” 

Shiro shot him a warning glance but decided to ignore him. For the longest time, nobody spoke. Finally Rinya took a deep, shaky breath and looked at Keith with sadness in her silver gaze.

“Yes, Malcolm was the previous red paladin, but he was more than just a partner.” She murmured just loud enough for them to hear. “He was...my brother.”

Both Shiro and Keith’s eyes widened, but they didn’t say anything, Rinya continued.

“My older twin brother to be exact. We were practically inseparable since we were born. He was very kind, and was always protective of me. Mal was the one who taught me how to fight, he wasn’t just strong, he was smart too. He loved to read all the files in the castle archive, it didn’t matter what it was about, he would read it.” She said with a distant look on her face, as if she was staring at something the paladins couldn’t see. “We fought sometimes, but he was the best brother I could have. I wish I could of told him that. But now that he’s gone I-” Rinya choked, not able to finish her sentence.

“I’m sure he knew.” Shiro said comfortingly. 

The Altean nodded, then turned to face Keith. “Keith, I...I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t of said those things, you didn’t deserve that. It was just...I felt that accepting you as the red paladin meant betraying Mal..” 

“Is that why you hated me?” Keith asked.

“It’s not that I hated you, I was just mad. And I was more mad at Red than you, but you can’t exactly express your anger at a giant robotic cat.”

“Fair enough.” The red paladin shrugged. “But why were you mad at Red?”

“I thought...I thought Red was trying to replace Mal, and I just couldn’t accept that. I used to wonder why Red chose you, I thought you were the complete opposite of him. But now that I've been with you longer, I can see why you were chosen.” Rinya looked at Keith with a wistful gaze. “You two are really similar.”

“Me? I’m like your brother?”

She nodded. “You are. Anyways, I’m s...sorr…um, sorr...” Rinya struggled with the last word.

“Sorry?” Shiro asked, an amused expression on his face.

“Yeah, that. Can you forgive me?”

At first Keith didn’t say anything, which made Rinya worried. Then, the paladin smirked playfully.

“I’ll only accept your apology if you say it properly.”

“I did say it!” Rinya complained.

“No, Shiro said it for you.” Keith said.

“Fine! Just this once!...I’m...sorry.” Rinya whispered the last part, barely loud enough for them to hear.

“What’s that? Did you say something cuz I couldn’t hear you. Could you hear her Shiro?”

“Nope.” Shiro grinned.

“Oh c’mon!” Rinya whined in frustration, causing paladins started to laugh at her response until their wounds caused them to stop.

“Anyways.” Keith said while extending his hand towards the core. “I forgive you. Let’s defeat Zarkon and avenge your brother.” 

“Yeah.” She replied as she firmly grabbed his hand.

As soon as they did that, the red lion rumbled to life, Shiro, Keith and Rinya had to scramble out of the way to avoid getting crushed. The lion turned it’s head to face the three of them, it’s glowing gaze conveying a silent message to those who understood.

“Keith, what’s going on?” The black paladin asked, he wasn’t particularly worried, but the unusual behavior still made him cautious. 

“Red wants to talk to Rinya.” Keith replied, still eyeing his lion. 

With much difficulty, the core hobbled over to the lion and reached her hand out, Red responded by lowering it’s head for her to touch. As soon as her fingers met cold metal, she closed her eyes and took a breath.

“I’m sorry I was mad at you.” She murmured.

Then, the sound of a deep, metallic purr rumbled from the lion, it slowly raised it’s head, breaking the contact. Soon it’s eyes began to grow brighter as a flash of red light enveloped Rinya’s hand that had just been on Red’s cool metal surface. The paladins stared wide-eyed at the phenomena before them. As the light began to fade, they could see that the Altean was now holding something. It was a baton that was about the same size as those used in relay races. It had a smooth white surface with glowing red bands on the ends.

“Thanks Red.” Rinya said, smiling.

“What was that?” Keith asked in bewilderment.

“That was the red lion giving me my Protea. It means that the lion trusts me enough to have it.”

“What’s a Protea?” Shiro peered at the baton in her hand curiously.

“Remember the ability Princess Allura was talking about before? This is it. It works a lot like the bayards, each of the cores’ Protea has this as it’s basic shape, but it will transform into a different weapon based on the core.”

As soon as Rinya said this, a wave of exhaustion flowed through her as the strength left her body, her legs buckled and she collapsed. Shiro and Keith barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

“Hey, you alright?” the red paladin gave her a look of concern.

“I’m fine. I just haven’t fully recovered yet is all.” Rinya murmured, suddenly very sleepy.

“I think I’m gonna rest my eyes for a bit.”

And for the third time that day, the world went black.


	16. Waiting

Abby hated feeling so helpless, but it’s not like she had a choice in the matter. After the whole mermaid incident, which she hadn’t been a part of, Abby and the group received Pidge’s signal and returned to the Castle of Lions. Dulcet was still unconscious when they got to the ship, and Elise hadn’t woken up either. The yellow core had no idea why she didn’t pass out when Voltron was torn apart, but she kinda wished she had. The small girl was exhausted, yet she couldn’t sleep if she wanted to. Abby knew that as soon as she closed her eyes, she would have nightmares about the battle and her friends getting hurt. Nope, she’d rather stay up than relive that experience.

The small girl was sitting in the lounge where her fellow cores had been set down to rest. Allura had suggested doing this instead of bringing them in their rooms to make it easier to watch out for them. Abby sat with her back hunched, staring at the floor as her foot tapped, giving an outlet for her inner anxiousness. She did her best she could to keep her mind away from certain negative thoughts, but there was only so many things you can distract yourself with. Abby glanced up as the doors slid open, standing up and hoping to see Keith, Rinya and Shiro, but the one standing in the doorway was just the blue paladin. 

Abby sighed and plopped back down onto the couch-like furniture she had been sitting on. “Lance, don’t even bother. The others have already tried, I’m not leaving.”

Lance shrugged “Ok suit yourself. But you’re gonna fall asleep if you keep sitting there. Why don’t you take a walk?”

“A walk?” 

“Yeah, a walk. You know, to get the blood moving? It’ll help you stay awake, and it’ll only take a few minutes.”

The core glanced at her unconscious friends then sighed. “Fine, I’ll walk around the castle a bit.”

“Sweet! I’ll keep you company.” The two of them left the room and strolled down the halls of the castle, they were walking very slowly since Abby was still recovering, but the paladin didn’t seem to mind, though the air between them was awkward since they had nothing to talk about. 

The silence was only broken when Lance sighed. “They’re gonna be okay you know.” 

Abby was surprised about how considerate he was being, it cheered her up a little. “Yeah, I know. But it doesn’t stop me from worrying. It also doesn’t help that I’m the only one awake, it makes me think that there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you!” Lance said reassuringly “Allura said that the reason why you didn’t faint was because you probably had more endurance and a higher pain tolerance than the others. And Rinya would probably be awake too if it weren’t for Keith’s laser cannon. So don’t worry about it.”

“You telling me not to worry will make me worry even more.” The core rolled her eyes.

“Well what else am I supposed to say? ‘You should totally worry about your friends’?”

“No, that would be worse!” She laughed and Lance laughed with her, their chatter echoing throughout the corridors of the castle.

“Oh yeah, Hunk told me you can speak Spanish, is that true?” Abby asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, because I can speak Spanish too.”

“Oh really?” The paladin said with an arched eyebrow, clearly doubtful. “Entonces, puedes entender que estoy diciendo?” [So, can you understand what I’m saying?]

Abby smirked. “Si, yo entiendo que estas diciendo, no soy un idiota.” [Yes, I understand what you’re saying, I’m not an idiot] she replied fluently, no bad accents or mispronunciations to be heard.

Lance raised his his hands in the air as if he were surrendering and shrugged.

“Alright you got me, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t some gringo who thinks that taking a mandatory Spanish class in middle school makes you an expert on the language.” he said.

“Nope, I’m a genuine hispanic girl. Or half hispanic at least. My mom was born in Argentina.” Abby said, her chest puffed out in pride.

“Cool. So that means we can have secret conversations without the others knowing what we’re saying, right?” Lance fake-whispered to the core, who responded, giggling

“Yeah, totally.” Abby suddenly yawned, and Lance chuckled.  
“Y’know, you really should get some rest. You look really tired.”

“But I have to stay awake...I wanna be there when they wake up…” The core let out another huge yawn, her eyelids drooped in exhaustion. They had circled back to the lounge and were standing in front of the doors which slid open as they approached.

“Then how about a compromise, you take a little power nap for like half an hour. I’ll keep watch over them until you wake up. Deal?”

She hesitated but eventually gave in to the temptation.

“Alright fine, I’ll take go to sleep, but you have to wake me up after half an hour! And you also have to wake me up if anything comes up!” Abby said sternly.

The blue paladin grinned. “It’s a deal then. Now go to sleep.”

Abby didn’t need to be told twice. She plopped down her tired aching body on the couch a few feet away from the other cores, closed her eyes and almost instantly drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The yellow core awoke sometime later to the sound of soft murmurings. Abby opened one sleepy eye and looked up, wanting to know who or what had woken her up. As her vision became clearer and she became more awake, she saw that what had woken her up was none other than Elise and Dulcet chatting away with Hunk and Lance. 

Abby was so shocked to see her friends awake that she fell off the couch and on the floor, which directed everyone’s attention to her.

“Well look who’s back from the dead.” Elise said sarcastically.

“When did you guys get up?!” Abby demanded while glaring at Lance.

Dulcet noticed this and pat her friend’s shoulder in attempt to calm her anger towards the blue paladin.

“We haven’t been up for too long, and we asked Lance to let you sleep, it looked like you needed it.” She said.

“Yeah, I tried waking you up gently for Lance but you were out like a light.” Hunk added.  
Abby sighed, deciding that it wasn’t worth getting mad over.

“But I’m glad you guys are ok, …” Hunk said, relieved, the others couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

“So...No sign of Keith, Shiro and Rinya?” Abby asked.

“Yeah, actually.” Lance replied. “Pidge left to go get them a while ago, they should be here any minute.”

Just as he said that, Pidge and Keith bursted into the room, causing everyone to stand abruptly, they would of celebrated their reunion if it weren’t for the two paladin’s grim expressions.

“You’re back! You guys’re ok!” Abby said despite the heavy atmosphere.

“Not all of us.” Keith muttered

“What happened?” Elise asked.

“It’s Shiro and Rinya.” Pidge said. “They’re hurt.”


	17. Sick

Elise and the others dashed towards the healing pods where Allura and Coran were assisting Shiro and Rinya. The black paladin’s side was wounded with claw marks that glowed an angry purple, he had his arm around Coran, using him as a crutch in order to get to the opened healing pod. Allura was carrying Rinya bridal style and was about to head down the corridor when she was stopped by the rest of their group.

The red core laid limply in the princess’s arms, her skin was sickly pale, her breathing was faint and shallow as her whole body trembled. Seeing her like this reminded them of the time Dulcet was sick.

“What happened!?” Abby asked as she began frantically checking Rinya for wounds. 

“Shiro was hurt while he was rescuing me, he will make a full recovery after he spends a few hours in the healing pod, Rinya however…” The princess grimaced worriedly.

“What’s wrong?! Is she going to be ok?!” Dulcet demanded, her breath getting quick and shallow as she began to panic.

“Dulcet, calm down.” Keith said while placing his hand on her shoulder. “They’re going to be fine. Right?” the paladin said, addressing the last question to Allura.

“Like I said, Shiro should be fine after a while. But Rinya’s lost too much energy, we need to get her treatment and fast.” She said as she pushed through the small crowd and down the hallway, many followed and proceeded to ask questions frantically.

“Treatment? Why does she need treatment? Last time we let Dulcet rest for a few hours and then she was fine.” Elise said frowning.

“That’s because Dulcet isn’t as trained as Rinya.” Allura said without breaking stride. “Rinya has been trained to endure more strain than you are capable of at the moment, meaning she can give more energy without the consequences, but that also means that when she’s in this state, it’ll take longer for her to heal.”

“Ok but that still doesn’t explain why she needs treatment, all she has to do is rest for longer, right?” Abby asked

“That is correct, but if we just let her recover on her own, it will take her days, even a week to be well enough to go out on the field and we don’t have that kind of time. ith the the situation we’re in right now, we need to get her back on her feet as soon as possible.”

Elise nodded “Alright, so what kind of treatment does she need?”

“One that we don’t have here in the castle I’m afraid. We have to go to the planet Viridi and find the Mirian blossom to help restore her energy.” Allura said as she reached the doors that led to her room. She went inside as the doors automatically slid open, the others followed behind her and watched as she set down the unconscious girl upon her bed. 

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Abby exclaimed, she was about to run out of the room when Allura held out her arm to stop her.

“Not so fast. You three are still recovering from the last battle. We have no idea what we’re going to face out there and we don’t need you to end up like Rinya as well. You’ll be staying here with Coran and Shiro. The rest of us will look for the flower.”

“Uh, no. With all due respect, we’re going. And you can’t stop us.” Dulcet said stubbornly. 

“Yeah, we’re not gonna just stand here and wait if there’s something we can do. We want to help Rinya.” Elise said and Abby nodded in agreement.

Allura glanced from one girl to another before letting out a long sigh of defeat.

“Fine, but you to be extra careful.”

“Yes ma’am!” Abby saluted the princess before dashing out of the room, Dulcet and Elise couldn’t help but giggle at her excitement.

Allura masagged her temples and let out another huge sigh “I hope I’m making the right decision.” She muttered to herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After taking a wormhole to planet Viridi, those who were healthy enough prepared themselves to get the Mirian blossom, in the end Allura was too worried about everyone not to do anything, so she decided to accompany them as well. They eventually landed on Viridi, which was hard considering the planet’s surface was entirely made up of thick jungle canopy, it took them about an hour just to find a clearing large enough to land the castle. As soon as they landed, everyone got ready to go out, luckily the planet had a breathable atmosphere, so preparations were quite easy. The planet’s environment looked similar to that of a rainforest jungle on earth, except the plant life was vastly different. The trees that populated the entire surface of Viridi looked much like jungle trees, the only difference that they could see was that these trees had purple bark and thick turquoise leaves. When the castle doors opened, Abby was the first one out, she immediately began to run around the jungle floor, laughing as she wove through the trees. 

“Abby! Stop running around! This is serious!” Allura scolded.

“Sorry, it’s just been so long that I’ve been able to walk around on another planet y’know?” she said grinning before she put on a serious expression.

“Ok, so what does this flower look like?” Dulcet asked. 

The Princess got out a hand held device, similar looking to the modern smart-phone, and pressed a button. Instantly, a holographic projection of the flower popped out of the screen. The flower was in the shape of a star, with five light blue petals and four delicate pistils coming out of the center. The flower grew on a thick purple vine covered in thorns.

“This is the Mirian blossom, which grows on the Mirian tree. It’s extremely rare because while the tree can grow pretty much anywhere on this planet, the flower will only bloom if the tree is grown in very specific conditions.”

“Ok, so what do Mirian trees look like?” Keith asked in an impatient tone, he was clearly anxious to begin the search.

“The trees are all around you, they make up this entire jungle.” Allura gestured to the tall purple trees that surrounded the clearing.

“Great. How the heck are we supposed to find a tiny flower in the middle of this freaking jungle!” Pidge exclaimed.

“Well, we could go in pairs and split up to cover more ground.” Elise suggested, she tried to look as calm as possible, but her voice revealed how scared and worried she really was. How could she not be? Two of her teammates are hurt and she was still recovering from the battle. But despite her overwhelming emotions, Elise decided to press on, she had to do this for her friends.

“That sounds like a good idea. We should go in teams of matching cores and paladins, y’know so we can bond.” The blue paladin then proceeded to drape his arm over Dulcet’s shoulder.

“Um, no thanks I’m good.” Dulcet shrugged Lance’s arm off, taking a step back.

Lance gaped at the Aruvi as if she had committed an act of betrayal. “But we’re supposed to be buddies!”

“Er, Dulcet’s right!” Allura cut in hastily. “It’s a good idea to spend time with your other teammates, your bond with them is important too. She can partner up with me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pair up with you, Lance.” Hunk said comfortingly.

As Lance pouted, Dulcet turned to look at the Altean and silently mouthed the words ‘thank you’, to which Allura replied with a nod of understanding.

“In that case…” Abby faced the green paladin. “Hey Pidge, you wanna team up with me?”

Pidge replied with a shrug “Sure.”

“Then that leaves Elise and I as a team.” Keith said.

“Alright, each team will get one of these.” Allura said while handing out similar devices to the one she used to display the holograph of the flower. “These devices should guide you to the closest area that has most of the criteria in order for the Mirian blossom to bloom.This doesn’t guarantee you’ll find one though, as I said before, they’re incredibly rare.”

“I don’t think we should stay split up for long though, how about after a few hours we come back here and try to move on to a different part of the planet?” Hunk suggested.

The princess nodded. “Good idea, if you don’t find anything, come back here after three hours, if you find the Mirian blossom, contact the others and we’ll go to your location as soon as possible. Is that clear?”

Everyone got the message loud and clear, soon they got into their groups and went their separate ways.


	18. Masks and Disguises

Allura and Dulcet trekked through the unfamiliar lands, taking in all of the new sights while keeping a lookout for possible dangers. Dulcet had to admit that without Lance, things were a lot quieter, but she wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She enjoyed having a little break from him, but at the same time something felt missing, she kinda missed the blue paladin, as annoying as he was. Not that Allura wasn’t good company. The two of them walked in silence for the longest time, too occupied in their own thoughts to start a conversation. After about ten minutes of this, Allura decided to break the ice.

“So Dulcet...we haven’t had a chance to talk, you and I.” The princess said awkwardly.

“Well now’s a good chance, what do you want to talk about?” The core responded.

“I...I wanted to ask how you were doing.”

“What?” The Aruvi tipped her head in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

 

“Well...you haven’t had a lot of time to adjust to your new surroundings and duties, not to mention you just recovered from a battle, I wanted to check up on you to see if you were alright.”

Dulcet was touched by Allura’s concern for her. She hadn’t known the Altean princess for long, but the core already considered her a good friend, maybe even a mother figure too.

“I’m doing ok, adjusting is nothing new to me, I had to do that when I arrived on Earth.” Dulcet shrugged.

“That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask for a while but how did you get to Earth?”

Dulcet stiffened slightly at the question, but she replied anyway. “I snuck out of the Galra cruiser on an escape pod, I...don’t remember much from when I was a prisoner…” I’m not sure if I even want to remember she added silently.

“I see...sorry, this is a very heavy topic, let’s talk about something different shall we? What was your home like on Erobernde?”

Dulcet stopped dead in her tracks, Allura was walking ahead of her so she didn’t notice until she turned around. The Aruvi stared at the ground, hiding her expression, not that it was easy to read with her mask.

“Dulcet? What’s wrong?” The princess asked, closing the distance between them. 

She peered up at her face to find hot tears spilling from behind her mask. Dulcet immediately tried to wipe them away but it was no use, Allura had already seen them.

“I’m sorry princess, it’s just…” Dulcet’s voice cracked with emotion. “I’m not ready to think about it yet, about what happened and my family...I just can’t...not now…”

The princess said nothing, but she delicately brushed the core’s tears away, careful not to touch her mask in the process. “I understand, I know it hurts but you aren’t alone. Whenever you’re ready, you can talk to me, you can talk to any one of us. Just please don’t carry this burden on your own.”

“...Kay.” Dulcet whispered. “M’sorry...it seems like I’m always depending on you guys for help…”

“And that’s ok! You’re supposed to depend on us, just as much as we’re depending on you.” Allura urged.

The Aruvi didn’t say anything, she clearly wasn’t convinced but she had stopped crying at least. Then, Dulcet lifted her mask up slightly and used her hands to wipe away the remaining tears, it happened so fast that the only thing Allura saw under the mask was a purple blur. The gesture reminded the princess of a question she was going to ask before the core had started crying.

“Dulcet, may I ask another question? If it’s too personal and you don’t want to answer I understand.” she asked gently.

Dulcet hesitated briefly before nodding.

“Why do you wear that mask?”

From what Allura could tell, Dulcet seemed surprised at the question, she briefly touched her mask before replying.

“These masks have become a cultural norm ever since the rising of the Galra Empire…at least, that’s what my father taught me. He said that a long time ago, the Aruvi ancestors gave their warriors masks to wear in battle to show their strength. When Zarkon first took over our planet, the warriors started wearing their masks constantly. Not only show their strength, but to show that to them the battle wasn’t over. That one day, we would win. Eventually everyone wore masks, not just the warriors, and we’ve been doing it ever since. The masks are meant to make us strong, or at least seem strong.” Dulcet then laughed bitterly. “But I guess it doesn’t seem to be working for me.”

“No. Dulcet you are strong. More than you know.” Allura said firmly, she felt as if she were speaking on everyone’s behalf for this matter. “Not just anyone could have survived what you have been through. And the fact that you fight, even when you’re scared, means that you have a tremendous amount of strength. I don’t know what it means to be strong on Erobende, but on Altea, your bravery would equal to that of the mightiest of warriors. You are not weak, you are strong.”

Dulcet’s face heated up in embarrassment. “Um...thank you, I guess.” she then started fidgeting to direct her nervous energy elsewhere

“Anytime. Is there a reason why you never take off your mask? I...heard a rumor from the others that you even sleep with it on.”

“You heard WHAT?!” Dulcet exclaimed, suddenly very angry.

“Well...you can’t exactly blame them.” Allura said, trying to calm her down. “You are something they’ve never seen before, of course they’re all curious. It just goes to show that they want to know more about you.”

“I...guess that’s true.” The Aruvi admitted, calming down a little. “And to answer your question, yes, there is a reason why I don’t take my mask.”

“And what is that?” 

“Well, on my planet, taking your mask off in front of someone means that you trust that person completely. It’s something really intimate and personal. It requires a lot of trust.”

“So, you don’t trust me enough to show me?”

“No…” Dulcet said guiltily “I just met you…and to be fair, I don’t even trust Abby or Elise enough to show them, and I’ve known them the longest out of everyone on the ship. It’s just something really personal. I’ll show you guys one day I’m sure, just...not now.”

“I understand.” Allura said kindly. “I look forward to the day you show all of us.”

Dulcet opened her mouth to speak, but a voice over the comms interrupted her.

“Uh guys…?” Pidge’s voice crackled to life.

“We may have a problem…”


	19. Discoveries Among the Trees

When it came to the outdoors, Pidge and Abby couldn’t be more different. While Abby grew up spending summers camping and hiking through the wilderness, Pidge spent most of her time on a computer with the AC on, avoiding allergy attacks. It was easy to tell who were enjoying themselves and who weren’t.

“Ugh I hate this. Why can’t this stupid flower just grow everywhere? Then I wouldn’t have to be here.” Pidge complained, grunting in effort as she tried to scramble over a fallen tree.

“Oh it’s not that bad.” Abby said, she had already climbed the tree and was extending a helping hand. The paladin took the hand and Abby hoisted her up next to her.

“Besides, I thought the green paladin was supposed to be the guardian of the forest or something.” the core said playfully.

“Just because I’m it’s guardian doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Pidge grumbled, swatting and alien insect that landed on her arm.

“I guess that’s true. Which way to the blossom?” Abby asked, peering over Pidge’s shoulder to look at the device Allura had given them.

“It looks like it’s a bit Northeast from here, but it looks like we still have a ways to go before reaching the next tree, at the rate that we’re going we should reach the next tree in about an hour.”

“I hope that this one will have blossoms.” Abby said. About half an hour ago, they had found a tree that, according to the device, had all the necessary requirements for the blossoms to grow only to find that there were in fact, no blossoms to be found.

“Me too.” Pidge agreed. 

Suddenly, the sound of a twig snapping followed by some rustling among the bushes echoed through the trees, something was coming. Pidge swiftly got out her bayard while Abby stood behind her, frustrated about how defenseless she was. The sounds became louder and louder until suddenly a creature the size of a large cat bursted from the bushes. It stopped right in front of Pidge and Abby, snarling with its fur standing on end.

The creature had a wolf-like build, but other than the shape of its body, it had almost nothing in common to the wolves on earth. It’s fur was a dark shade of purple with turquoise stripes on it’s back. It’s legs were long, lean and covered in fur the same color as the stripes on it’s back, while the colors of its fur would stand out in earth’s environments, here it blended perfectly well with the colorful environment. The creature had dark gray goat-like horns jutting from its head that curved back from behind it’s skull. What was most unusual about this animal was it’s tails, as in plural. It had two, purple wolf-like tails, except that the tips were made of a ghostly seafoam green flame, it didn’t seem to burn the creature or it’s surroundings, but the two girls could still feel the heat from the flames. The creature stared at them with it’s piercing, hostile gaze, it’s eyes the same color as the flames that danced on its tail tips.

“Whoa! What is that?!” Abby yelped in surprise.

“I don’t know, but we should be careful, it doesn’t look friendly.” Pidge replied in a harsh whisper.

The green paladin slowly pressed a button on her helmet, turning on the comms that connected with the rest of her teammates.

“Uh...guys? We may have a problem…”

“What is it? What’s going on?” Allura’s voice crackled loudly over the comms, startling the small creature. It pounced high in the air, bearing it’s sharp teeth in a snarl before clamping its jaws over its target, which happened to be Abby’s arm.

Abby cried out in pain, Pidge cried out in panic. Abby tried flailing her arm to try and get rid of her attacker, but the creature only tightened its grip, causing more harm than good.

“Oh god oh god oh god!” Pidge exclaimed, also flailing her arms but for an entirely different reason.

“Pidge! Abby!” several of their teammates yelled all at once through the comms.

“What the quiznak is going on over there?!” Keith demanded.

“Are you guys ok?!” Hunk asked in panicked concern.

“No! We found a small animal and it attacked Abby!”

“Ow ow ow...I’m ok… it just bit me is all, it’s nothing to worry about.” The core reassured her teammates, but she wasn’t very convincing with the alien creature still dangling on her arm.

“Nothing to worry about?! That..that thing is still biting you!” Pidge exclaimed.

“Wait, Abby’s hurt?” Elise’s voice sounded worried.

“Yes.” Pidge said over her wounded teammate, who tried to deny her injury but was drowned out by the stubborn green paladin.

“Abby, you need to be treated right away.” Allura’s stern voice echoed, many others hummed in agreement.

“Guys, I’m ok! It’s just a scratch!” Abby urged, but no one was buying it.

“For fucks sake Abby you’re bleeding all over the place!” Pidge shouted, frustrated that her teammate refused to get help.

“I’m fine, this is nothing, really.”

“How the hell is that nothing?!” Pidge screamed at the top of her lungs, pointing at the creature that still clung to her arm.

“I grew up in a house filled with rough-housing relatives and huge dogs, my skin is tough as rock.” Abby puffed out her chest in an attempt to act tough, but Pidge could see that the core’s eyes were watery from pain.

“It doesn’t freaking matter where you grew up!” Lance’s voice sounded exasperated over the comms “You’re hurt and you need to be taken care of!”

“Guys, stop worrying about me, I’m-” 

“Abby!” The yellow core was cut off by Dulcet’s voice, trembling with rage. “I swear to the fucking gods, if you don’t get your ass in a healing pod right now, I’m going to drag you all the way there myself!!”

Everyone stood in a stunned silence. They knew Dulcet could get mad, they had seen it a few times before, but they had never seen her this angry. 

“Dulcet please, calm down.” Allura said soothingly, trying to calm the furious Aruvi.

“No Allura, I won’t calm down! I already have two people I care about hurt, I can’t afford to have another.” Dulcet’s voice cracked, then everyone was silent, not knowing what to say, finally Abby spoke up softly.

“I just wanted to help Rinya.” she murmured

“I know you do, but if you keep going you may cause more harm than good, like Dulcet said, we can’t afford another casualty. It’s best if we treat your wound immediately before it gets worse, as soon as you’re healed you can go back to searching, alright?” The Altean Princess said warmly.

“...Alright I’ll go, but I’m coming back ASAP, and there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind!” Abby declared stubbornly.

“Good. Pidge, take Abby too the castle then come back once she’s healed.” Allura ordered.

“Roger that.” Pidge said before turning to face the injured core. “Let’s get going.”

Abby nodded silently before turning around and trudging through the jungle once more, not looking back as the wolf-like alien kept gnawing on her arm.


	20. Finding the Flower

After the whole ‘Abby Incident’ was over and done with, Keith turned off his comms that linked him to the rest of the team.

“I hope she’s ok.” Elise said, obviously worried about her friend.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. C’mon, we have to find this flower as soon as possible and get back to the ship.” Keith didn’t mean to sound cold and dismissive, of course he was worried about Abby, but he was worried about Rinya and Shiro too. He couldn’t afford distractions now.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Elise said before checking the device that Allura had given them. 

“We’re getting close to a tree that should have the blossom. Key word being should.” The core stated, she wasn’t too hopeful since their last few attempts weren’t successful.

Keith nodded. “Alright, let’s go.” and with that, the two of them marched through the jungle, maneuvering through the tree roots, bushes and vines. 

A semi-awkward silence fell between them. The two of them hadn’t talked much outside of training and meals, and as far as Elise knew, they had absolutely nothing in common. In all honesty Elise was slightly uncomfortable around the red paladin, he always looked a bit angry and was too impulsive for her liking. His expression was unreadable, so Elise could never guess what he was thinking or feeling. It also didn’t help that he spends nearly all of his free time (not including extra training) locked up in his room doing who knows what and the fact that he carries a huge knife with him everywhere he goes. It’s not that the green core didn’t like or get along with Keith, she trusted him completely as a teammate, but Elise wasn’t sure how she felt about him as a friend. 

“Um...hey Keith?” Elise said in an attempt to get rid of the unpleasant atmosphere between them.

“Yeah?” The paladin replied without looking back at her, marching forward without skipping a beat.

“...You know the battle we had? Where we had to go to the Galra base and rescue Allura?”

“What about it?”

“Are...are all battles like that?”

Keith paused before replying, “I’ve only been in a few serious battles, and each one was different. So I guess no two battles are exactly the same, but then again I haven’t been in that many.”

“Oh.” Once again an awkward silence hung around them like fog as they trudged through the trees. 

After a few minutes of this, Elise mustered up enough courage to ask another question.

“During those battles, were you scared?”

Keith shrugged. “I guess I was, I think anyone would be scared in those situations. But I was taught to overcome and use my fear in order to move forward and survive for the next battle.”

“How can you say that so casually?”

The paladin turned around to find that Elise had stopped in her tracks, her gaze was glued to the forest floor as she hugged herself tightly in an attempt of self comfort.

“How can you think of doing another battle so soon?! The thought of going through something like that again terrifies me, and I haven’t even done any real fighting yet! Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?! Aren’t you afraid of failing?! Aren’t you...afraid of dying?”

Elise’s squeezed her body tighter as her arms began to tremble. Keith was at a loss for words, he was never good at these kinds of situations. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t want to sugarcoat the situation, so what was he supposed to say?

Very awkwardly, Keith placed his hand on the core’s shoulder. She looked up, her eyes watery from suppressed tears.

“Look, I’m not good at these kinds of things, so I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to make you feel better. I know things scary for you right now, but I'm not going to lie to you and say everything will turn out ok, because chances are that it's not.” Keith stopped to examine Elise’s expression, hoping he didn't end up making things worse. The girl still had tears in her eyes, but she kept nodding mutely, waiting for him to continue.

“What I'm trying to say is, that we're all afraid of failing, of dieing. But no matter what, we're in this together. We can support each other when we're vulnerable. We're a team, so it's ok to be scared, because we'll be here for you.” The paladin held his breath, hoping his lame attempt at cheering someone up was enough to calm Elise. There was a very long pause before the core finally took a shaky breath and spoke.

 

“That was...so cheesy. Did you get that out of a Hallmark card?”

“Shut up.” 

Elise let out a small laugh and the edge of Keith’s lips curled up slightly in the form of a smile, relieved that she was feeling better.

“Anyways, we'd better get going, it's about time to start heading back to the castle. We should check out this last spot before meeting up with the others.” Keith suggested, his expression reverting back to it's usual serious form.

Elise nodded, and they continued their journey in a comfortable silence.

About ten minutes later, the red paladin stopped dead in his tracks, it happened so quickly that Elise almost ran into him.

“Hey! What's-”

“Quiet.” Keith interrupted her with an urgent tone. The core stiffened , her muscles tight in anticipation and fear. Seconds seemed like hours as they strained to listen past the sounds of the jungle and their own shallow breaths. It was faint, but a strange humming sound could be heard, coming from the direction they were wanting to go. 

“What is that?” Elise whispered

“I dunno, we should check it out.” 

Once again she nodded in agreement. Keith and Elise kept walking towards the noise, getting louder as they drew closer. The sound kept getting louder until it no longer sounded like a human, but instead a grinding metallic sound, like a giant buzzsaw, it got so loud that Elise thought she would go deaf. 

All of a sudden the buzzing sound stopped, but it was quiet for a second before the loud boom of something very large falling to the ground. The two of them raced to the source of the commotion, now curious more than ever. They stopped just as they heard the soft murmuring of voices. Keith shared a silent glance with Elise before pushing back some leaves to get a good look at what was going on.

What they saw left them speechless. An enormous machine with a giant glowing disk lying next to a fallen tree. It's path of destruction could be seen clearly, miles of desiccated trees and undergrowth far as the eye could see, it looked like an ugly scar in comparison to the lush forest they were hiding in. The slick black vehicle spewed vile smelling fumes that billowed into the sky, creating a thin haze of heat distortion all around of them. But the sight that turned Elise's blood to ice was the glowing Galra symbol staring back at her.


	21. The Wrath of the Forest

Elise couldn’t hear Keith contacting their team over the sound of her panicked heartbeats, drumming rhythmically in her ears. Even though the sign before her was horrifying, the core couldn’t bring herself to look away. 

All of a sudden, Keith placed his hand on Elise’s shoulder, the act made her jump, snapping her out of her trance. She turned to look at the paladin, who had a frown of concern etched onto his face.

“Sorry for startling you, are you ok?” he asked. 

Elise glanced back briefly at the carnage behind her before nodding mutely. The truth was that she wasn’t ok, she was scared shitless. Chances were that they would have to fight hand to hand, and while Keith was armed with a sword, all she had was a few days worth of defensive classes, which wasn’t going to do much in their current situation. Sure, she had seen this kind of situation before in movies and video games, but this was real life. No director or respawn command was going to save her from getting killed, once Elise was gone, it was going to be for good.  
Keith knew that she was hiding how scared she was, and he had to admit he was somewhat proud of her swallowing her fear for the sake of the mission. He decided not to press her, he didn’t want a dam of emotions breaking on him again, the paladin had barely been able to fix it the first time, he wouldn’t want to risk a second.

“The others should be here in about an hour, they were already on their way back to the castle when I contacted them, in the meantime we stay here and gather as much information as possible.” Keith stated calmly.

Once again Elise nodded, more confident this time. The thought of her teammates coming to help eased her mind. She wasn’t alone, she had her friends, she had Keith. Everything was going to be ok.

Keith took a deep breath before pushing aside the thick foliage that hid them from Galra eyes. Two more of the large black vehicles had appeared since their first glimpse of what they suspected to be a logging site. But why would the Galra need these materials? 

Suddenly the front of one of the vehicles flashed briefly, revealing the particle barrier that had blended in with its metal frame. The particle windshield then flashed once more before disintegrating, revealing who, or what, was inside. The pilot of the vehicle jumped out of his seat and landed on the forest floor.

Elise gasped before swiftly covering her mouth, staring at the alien creature in front of her. She had never actually seen a Galran before, though she’d had their appearance described to her many times. She had tried to imagine what they would look like, but her imagination was nothing compared to the beast before her.

The Galra was huge, standing at least six feet tall with large muscles that rippled under its purple fur. His (or at least, Elise assumed it was a guy) dark armor revealed his countless battle scars all over his arms, face, and animal-like ears. His glowing yellow eyes matched his fanged smile that curved in a cruel, twisted way. 

“That’s a Galra?” she whispered, hoping the soldier wouldn’t hear her.

Keith nodded grimly before refocusing his attention back to the enemy. Three more Galrans went to join the first, each coming out of the same vehicle, each one unique in appearance. The first Galra to join the pilot seemed shorter and younger than the others and had significantly less scars. The second one had several metal piercings on his right ear and a huge scar across his nose that vaguely resembled Shiro’s. The last soldier stood out the most with his left robotic eye and his prosthetic leg. All of them clenched their right hand in a fist and pounded it against their chest, Elise could only guess that it was some sort of greeting. Then, the group began to talk amongst themselves, the core and paladin had to strain their ears to hear what they were saying.

“Finally! I was wondering when we were going to get a break. I was starting to get cramps in my legs.” Said the shortest one while raising his hands above his head in a deep stretch. The Galra with the prosthetic snorted.

“At least you can actually feel your leg.”

“Oh be quiet Syborin, you always complain about your leg.” said the soldier with piercings. “It’s so humid out here, it feel like my fur is soaking wet. Tell me Exus, why are we out here again?” He turned to the Galra with the scars on his arms, Exus, who had been silently listening up until now.

“Izaks, you know better than to question our commander’s orders. Even Trivok knows this.” Exus then gestured to the youngest Galra, who responded by baring his fangs.

“Yes, I know that Exus.” Izaks retorted.“But all this over a quiznaking flower? It’s a waste of time and resources.”

Keith and Elise glanced at each other in surprise, it seemed as if they weren’t the only ones after the Mirian Blossom.

The Galra with the robotic eye, Syborin, shrugged. “You know how much Commander Reinax likes collecting rare items. Anyways I’m starving, when’s our next food break?”

The Galra soldiers kept chatting among themselves, but Elise had stopped listening, not that she could her them over the sound of the blood roaring in her ears. She clenched her fists, which were trembling with rage. This is what the Galra did. Needless destruction all for a stupid, selfish hobby. These men- no, these monsters had no regard for their environment or for someone who might need the flower more than they do (that someone being Rinya). They didn’t care who or what they destroyed, so long as they got what they wanted.

Elise clearly wasn’t thinking straight when she started to emerge from their hiding space and give the soldiers a piece of her mind. Luckily Keith was there to stop her.

“Are you crazy?!” he hissed as he grabbed her arm. “We have no idea how many Galra are inside those machines, taking them on would be suicide! Not to mention there’s only two of us and you don’t even have a weapon! I know you’re upset and you want to get revenge but now’s not the time. Let’s wait for the others before attacking.”

“Fine.” Elise muttered before shaking the paladin’s had off her. 

She plopped down on the forest floor and took off her helmet and squeezed it in an effort to calm down, careful not to shatter the glass visor in the front. Despite having different uniforms, the paladin and core helmets were exactly the same,the only differences were the colors that corresponded to their lion. She remembered that once during training Abby and Hunk made the mistake of setting down their identical helmets next to each other. Long story short, the two accidentally put on each other's helmets, Hunk got a headache from trying to squeeze his head into a tiny helmet and poor Abby couldn’t see at all. The thought cheered Elise up a bit. 

Keith sighed and sat down next to her.

“Look, I know how you feel. It’s taking everything I have not to beat them up right now. But we need to be patient.” Keith said softly.

“Yeah, I know.” Elise couldn’t help but feel surprised at Keith’s leadership. She expected him to jump out there and fight with her, but he did what was best for them. She found herself wondering what it would be like to have Keith as a leader, but the thought seemed pointless since Shiro and Allura were in charge. 

“Let’s just hope the others get here soon.” she said, Keith nodded and the two of them sat together with the sound of the Galra machines roaring back to life behind them. 

***

The first pair to arrive were Allura and Dulcet, out of breath from running most of the way there. After they caught their breath, Keith began to explain the situation only to be interrupted by Hunk and Lance loudly charging through the trees. So much for stealth. It was a good thing the Galra couldn’t hear them over their machines sawing away at the Mirian trees. Keith began to start his explanation from the beginning only to be interrupted once again. Everyone was surprised to see Pidge emerge from the bushes.

“Pidge! We thought you’d be at the castle with Abby. How is she? Has she adjusted to the healing pod?” Allura asked.

“Yeah, about that…” Pidge sheepishly stepped away from the bush to reveal Abby right behind her.

“Abby! You’re supposed to be at the castle!” Dulcet shouted, even with her mask on everyone could tell by the Aruvi’s tone that she was mad, and Abby knew that too.

“I know I know, but I wanted to help Rinya, and I can’t do that in the castle. Besides I’m not that hurt.”

“Holy Crow! What is that?!” Hunk exclaimed pointing to the creature dangling on Abby’s arm. 

“Oh, this is the animal that attacked me earlier. I’ve gotta say I’ve kinda grown attached to the little guy.” Abby said calmly, as if they were talking about the weather instead of the alien creature chewing on her.

“I think it’s the other way around.” Elise said grimly, not able to enjoy the pun she had made under the circumstances.

“You mean it’s still on you?!” Lance said in disbelief.

“Well yeah, he won’t let go, and everytime I try and get him off he bites down harder, so I just kinda let him stay there. I’m thinking about naming him Stitch.”

“After the Disney movie?” Hunk asked, eyeing the wolf-like alien cautiously.

“Yeah, that and because it’s what I’m gonna need on my arm once he lets go.” Abby said, wincing at the thought.

“I don’t care what his name is, you need to get back to the castle now!” Dulcet scolded, more fiercely this time.

“Alright Dulcet, calm down.” Allura said gently. “Abby, we’re glad to have you here, but we can’t have you getting more injured than you already are. If you insist on staying then fine. But let’s make one thing clear: you are not going out there in your condition. You can help in other ways, but you have to stay here out of harm’s way, understood?” she stated firmly.

Abby hesitated before nodding. “Ok.”

Dulcet was also hesitant, but in the end she agreed to the terms.  
“Sorry for yelling at you, Abby.” The Aruvi apologized. Abby replied with a shrug.

“Hey, it just goes to show that you care.” 

“Of course I care!” Dulcet tried scowling at Abby but a smile kept playing at the edge of her lips.

Suddenly, a victorious cry rang through the trees, startling the cores and paladins. They peeked through the leaves that hid them to investigate. A single Galra soldier was standing on the hood of one of the vehicles, his eyes gleamed with triumph as he raised his hand to the sky, clutching a prize in his claws that was hidden from view. The soldier then lowered his hand to show off his prize to his comrades, and there they saw a blue flower. Cheers rose from the crowd as he continued gloating. Team Voltron watched helplessly at the sight before them, the flower was in their reach and yet they couldn’t get it, Rinya’s salvation was in the hands of the enemy.

“Good work.” said another Galra soldier. “Now let’s gather our supplies and leave this planet before the druids arrive to drain its quintessence.”

As soon as she heard those words, something inside of Elise snapped. They were taking the only thing in the universe able to help Rinya and then destroy the planet. The thought made her blood boil. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

Usually when Elise is faced with a difficult situation, she thinks about her options logically   
before coming to a decision, but not this time. She made this decision with raw emotions and instinct. Despite her better judgement, Elise suppressed all her doubt and bursted from the bushes.

She swiftly weaved among the Galra soldier until she had reached the one with the Mirian blossom. The core lunged for the flower, tackling her enemy to the ground before snatching the flower. Needless to say everyone was surprised, but once they were over their shock everyone acted accordingly.

“Get her!” A single Galra barked the order and the rest of the soldiers scrambled for their weapons, aiming at Elise. The Paladins erupted from their hiding spot with bayards blazing, Allura shortly followed behind them and was holding her own against the enemy despite not having a weapon. The clearing had become a chaotic battlefield with shots firing in every direction. It was in that instant that Elise severely regretted her decision, she was the cause of this storm of violence, and yet there was nothing she could do to help, it was all she could do just to dodge the enemy fire. 

Then suddenly, Elise locked eyes with a Galran soldier, said she recognized him as the one who had originally found the flower. His piercing gaze was full of fury and hatred, he roared and charged at her, wanting to get his prize back. All at once Elise’s instincts kicked in, pure adrenaline ran through her veins as she turned and ran deep into the cover of the forest.

Elise ran faster than she ever had before in her life, her heart pounded against her ribcage painfully as she sprinted through jungle. She made the mistake of looking behind her to see if she had out run her pursuer, what she found instead was the Galra soldier only about five feet behind her with four of his comrades close behind him. 

Deep down Elise knew that they would catch her eventually, she wouldn’t be able to keep this up much longer, and there was no way she could fight them on her own. The girl knew that her place on the team wasn’t on the front lines, she was better off staying behind and using her knowledge, out of harm’s way. She knew that by taking the flower she was jeopardizing the mission and risking Rinya’s health. The core knew all of this, but even so, she couldn’t of just stayed behind while her team mates were fighting for their lives, even if hiding was her place on the battlefield. Elise was a member of Team Voltron, no matter how weak or inexperienced she was, she would fight to protect her friends until the bitter end. Elise gripped the flower tighter as she pressed on.

After what seemed like hours of running, Elise bursted out of the forest and into a clearing that led right to the edge of a steep cliff. The core stopped just before the end of the cliff to look down it, about 75 feet below her was the large canopy of turquoise leaves from the Mirian trees. It didn’t take long for her to figure out that probably wouldn’t survive the fall. Elise turned around to head back into the forest only to find that soldiers had caught up and were beginning to surround her. She was trapped.

Elise slowly backed away from the Galra until she found herself at the edge of the cliff, she gripped the flower tighter as she shifted into a defensive pose, preparing her last stand as the enemy circled closer.

Suddenly, an Earth-shattering roar was heard, it was so loud that it made Elise’s bones vibrate. The five enemy soldiers froze, startled by the sudden noise. Elise should of been scared of it too, but for some reason that deafening cry was familiar, comforting even. Then, a giant shadow loomed over them and the core looked up to find the Green Lion hovering right behind her.

As the Galra took steps back in fright, Elise drew nearer to the mechanical beast. Her hand was drawn to the lion’s surface like a magnet. As soon as she made contact, the Green Lion let out a deep purr. It’s yellow eyes glowed intelligently as it gazed at its core. Suddenly, a bright flash of green light surrounded Elise’s hand, she stared at it briefly, mesmerized by what was happening right in front of her. But just as the light had appeared, it disappeared just as quickly, leaving Elise a white, black and green baton in her hand.

“What the heck is this?! Is this some sort of bayard? How do I use it?!” The core asked frantically, but the lion gave no reply. The Galra soldiers soon began to recover from their shock and started to aim their blasters at Elise once more.

“Uh...Green? A little help here!” She said desperately. Once again a bright green light flashed around Elise’s hand as the baton began to change shape. When the light faded, Elise was no longer holding a baton, but a small crossbow, it had transformed just like a bayard.

Elise had no time to marvel at her new weapon, she immediately pulled the trigger on the crossbow and fired an electric green blast. Unfortunately for her the blast didn’t hit its target but instead hit a tree one foot away from the soldier she was aiming for. After that the Galra soldiers opened fire at her, but before any of the shots hit her, the Green Lion swiftly stepped in front of her and became shield, blocking the enemy fire.

“Woah! Thanks Green!” Elise said, The Green Lion roared in response. The core quickly recovered and prepared herself to attack again. As much as she would of liked it, Elise knew that the Green Lion wasn’t going to help her fight, she sensed that the robot wanted her to prove herself and fight her own battles. 

After many failed attempts, Elise finally managed to hit one of the soldiers, as soon as the blast hit him, arcs of green electricity surrounded his body, electrocuting him. The soldier twitched in pain for a few seconds before collapsing on the ground, unconscious. The green core whooped in victory before ducking behind the lion for cover. She kept up the pattern of shooting and ducking for cover over and over again. The fight dragged on until there was only one soldier left. Elise was exhausted, but she couldn’t quit now.

Suddenly, she heard several voices shouting in the distance. 

“Elise!”

“Elise, are you ok?!”

The girl felt a rush or relief as she heard the sound of her friends approaching. Soon, she and her friends would be able to defeat the remaining soldiers and bring the flower back to the castle.

The Galra soldier let out a low growl, he knew that he wouldn’t stand a chance at winning with enemy reinforcements on their way. A cold, determined look flashed on the Galra’s face as he pressed something on his belt. Instantly the metal spheres attached to his wait began to flash, a high pitched beep rang in tune with the flashing lights, Elise immediately knew they were grenades.

“Victory or Death!!!!!” the soldier roared before charging at Elise. Elise tried to stop him from coming closer but she couldn’t hit him with her lousy aim. As the soldier got closer the grenades began to beep faster and faster, Elise barely had enough time to take cover before…

BOOM

Elise blinked opened her eyes in a daze, her ears ringing from the explosion. She groaned as she got up, her whole body ached, she had several cuts and bruises from the explosion. Suddenly, a large cracking noise echoed around her, Elise looked around frantically to find where it was coming from until she saw it. A large crack had formed on the cliff right where the grenades had detonated. Dread filled the pit of her stomach as she saw the crack grow in size and the ground begin to shake. Then, the ground beneath Elise disappeared as she plunged into the tree tops below.

***

The paladins had arrived just in time to witness the cliff disappear, taking Elise and the Green Lion with it.

“ELISE!” Abby cried, running out into the clearing to save her friend, but it was too late. The Green Core was gone. The team looked over the edge of the cliff to see if there was any trace of their friend, but none was found. 

“W-we have to go down there! We have to find her!” Abby said, hot tears forming in her eyes. 

“But how? She could be anywhere down there.” Lance murmured, still staring at the cliff in shock.

“We have to try!” Dulcet said, her voice cracked with tears. 

Allura placed her hand on Dulcet’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, she then turned to face her team and addressed them with a blank expression, no doubt hiding her worry and fear for the green core.

“Dulcet’s right, we have to find Elise.” The Altean stated in a matter-of-fact tone. Everyone nodded, determined to get their friend. Soon the team had carefully climbed to the bottom of the cliff and began their search.

“Elise!”

“Elise, where are you?!”

“Please respond Elise!”

“ELISE!”

Everyone cried out desperately, hoping for a response, but they never got one. They searched for what seemed like hours, but there was no sign of her.

“C’mon guys! We...we can’t give up now!! We have to find Elise!” Pidge tried encouraging her teammates to keep searching, but most of them had already given up hope.

“I’m not sure we want to find her.” Keith said hoarsely. “I’ve been doing the math and-”

“You? Doing math?” Lance interrupted, a sceptical look on his face. “You’re a dropout, I don’t think we should rely on your so-called math.”

“Shut up Lance! I’m being serious!!” Keith snapped, his pent up anger, stress and worry exploding all at once. “It’s nearly impossible for someone to fall from that height and survive! So even if we did find her, I’m not sure we’d like what we’d find.”

“So, what? Do we give up? Just like that?!” Dulcet cried angrily, her arms trembling in emotion.

“I’m afraid that Keith’s right.” Allura said softly. “As defenders of the universe we have a duty to uphold, we can’t keep looking for Elise forever.”

“So that’s it then?” Hunk asked. “We’re just going to leave her here?”

“I’m afraid we have to. I’m sorry.” Allura let that thought sink in for a while, and after that, Abby immediately collapsed to the ground.

“No...Elise…!” Abby began to sob uncontrollably. Dulcet kneeled down next to her and embraced her, careful to avoid the purple wolf-like creature still attached to her arm. Pidge and Hunk began tearing up while Allura, Lance and Keith stood grieving silently.

Then suddenly, something fell right in front of Abby. She sniffed, picked it up, and tried to examine it through watery eyes. It was a pair of rectangular framed glasses. The yellow core slowly looked up and gasped. The others looked up as well, trying to find what Abby was looking at. 

About 30 feet above them, just below the canopy of leaves was a mass of tangled turquoise vines hanging from the highest branches of the Mirian trees, and in the center of that tangled mess was Elise, her body twisting in weird angles as she hung down, the vines securing her in place as she swayed lightly from side to side.

“Um...hey guys?” She said. “I could use a little help here…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The actual author (my friend) would like to let you know that school sill be starting soon and at that time, there will be a more regular update schedule. And I'm personally just wondering if anyone caught the obscure reference to the life of alexander hamilton


	22. Awakenings and Recoveries

After emerging from a short coma, you’d think that one would feel well rested considering the fact of being in a deep sleep for a day; this wasn’t true in Rinya’s case. As she woke up from her slumber and began to regain feeling in her body, the first thing that came was a throbbing headache, and then the aching muscles. A little later she began to hear things, unintelligible murmurs at first, but soon the jumbled noise began to sound like words.

“Whe...ill Riny...ake up? Wi...it tak...ong?” 

The core recognized her own name in the fragments of conversation she pieced together. The voice she heard was definitely female, it didn’t quite sound like Allura...maybe it was Elise? Or Dulcet? Rinya couldn’t be sure, she still couldn’t see anything, so she had to rely on sound to figure out what was going on. The Altean strained her ears to make out more of the conversation, hoping it would help to regain her hearing.

“...not sure...aybe a coup...vargas...perhaps sooner...I’ve never....this before.” The red core immediately recognized this as the princess’s voice, she could practically feel the regal aura emanating from her words.

“I hope she wakes up soon, I’m really worried.” She was able to hear properly this time, and was able to identify Hunk as the speaker. 

After a bit of adjusting, the core regained feeling in her eyelids as she slowly fluttered them open. At first, the sudden bright light blinded her and spots danced in her vision. 

“Ugh…” Rinya groaned as the light caused her headache to worsen.

“Rinya! You’re awake!” Dulcet exclaimed. 

Suddenly Rinya was surrounded by many familiar faces, all happy and relieved to see her awake. Dulcet, Hunk and Allura were gathered around the table she had been laying on, not the comfiest of places to sleep but she had slept on worse. The Altean sat up and immediately regret it, her head pounding from the effort.

“How do you feel?” Allura asked

“Like Quiznak.” Rinya groaned. After her headache subsided, she surveyed the room, a habit from her battle training.What she saw was so ridiculous that Rinya thought that she had to be dreaming. 

First, she saw Shiro sitting down, his prosthetic arm resting on a table with Pidge poking at it with tools and gadgets, the black paladin looked slightly uncomfortable as Pidge examined the tech with an eager expression. A few feet away from them was her Uncle, attempting to either push or drag Elise towards the healing pods, the two wore equally stubborn expressions as they bickered about something Rinya couldn’t hear. 

But by far, the strangest sight of all was Keith and Lance hovering around Abby, who had something purple and turquoise latched onto her arm. It took Rinya a second to realize that it was a creature that was attached to her. It seemed like the two paladins were trying to find a way to get the thing off of her, clearly they were unsuccessful. Every time Lance and Keith touched it, it writhed around and bit down harder, much to Abby’s discomfort.

“Uh...what happened?” Rinya asked while taking in the strange scene before her.

“It’s a long story.” Dulcet said.

“Basically we went to a forest in order to find a magic flower to heal you, we found it but there were a lot of Galra there too. Long story short we thought Elise died, but it turns out she was ok. Oh, and Abby made a new friend.” Hunk explained.

“Ok...so what’s Pidge doing to Shiro’s arm then?”

“He says that he remembered some things about his time as a prisoner...he says that a Galra helped him escape and stored some info in his arm.” Allura explained, not sounding happy about the situation.

“Looks like a lot happened while I was out.” Rinya muttered to herself. The core then got to her feet, ignoring her friend’s protests to do so, and walked dizzily towards her uncle.

“For the last time Coran, I’m fine!” Elise said. “I’m just a bit bruised is all, you should be worrying about Abby, not me.”

“I may not know a lot about human biology, but I know enough to tell when someone is fine, which clearly, you aren’t!” Coran persisted, his mustache twitching with concern.

“What are you guys arguing about?” Rinya asked. Both Coran and Elise turned to look at her and smiled.

“Rinya!” The two of them exclaimed at once.

“Thank goodness you’re ok.” Coran said while placing a firm hand on her soldier “Perhaps you would be more convincing.”

“Don’t you dare bring her into this.” Elise glared at Coran.

“I will bring her into this because you are as stubborn as a yelmor!” The older then Altean turned to Rinya. “Please convince your teammate here to go into a healing pod. I simply can’t believe that a human can survive an explosion and fall over the edge of a cliff and come out of it unscathed.”

“First of all, you made it sound a lot worse than it was.” Elise stated. “Second of all, I didn’t come out of it ‘unscathed’, I am a bit hurt, but not enough for me to go into one of those freaky pods.”

“Elise.” Rinya said, her tone resembling one a mother would use to warn her child not to press further. “Get into the pod. If you only have a few bruises, then you’ll be in and out before you know it. Please just do it, for me.”

“...Fine. But not until Abby’s taken care of, she’s hurt more than me.”

“Good enough for me!” Coran exclaimed cheerfully. “I’ll prepare two healing pods.”

Elise and Rinya left the elder Altean to the pods, and the two cores went off to check on their friend. As they got closer, they were able to hear the conversations between Lance, Keith, Abby and Dulcet, who had just joined the group.

“Keith, stop! You’re going to hurt her if you do that!” Lance yelled exasperatedly. 

The red paladin had wrapped his hands around the creature’s chest and was trying to pull it off of Abby’s arm unsuccessfully. Rinya was finally able to see the creature up close, and what she saw took her breath away. It was a small creature, only about a foot tall with a canine build. It’s glossy fur was a dark purple with turquoise stripes across its back and a pair of dark gray horns protruded from the top of it’s skull. It’s two tails wreathed in sea-foam green flames swung back and forth in a way that was almost hypnotizing. For whatever reason, Rinya found herself drawn to the beauty of this mysterious creature, even if it was biting Abby. 

“We gotta get it off somehow! We can’t just leave it on her arm!” Keith protested.

“Guys, stop arguing, you’re making Abby cry!” Dulcet said, gesturing to the yellow core whose eyes were watery from the pain.

“I’m not crying because of them arguing, I’m crying because I have a damn alien on my arm and I want it off!” Abby yelled. “That’s it, I’m no longer emotionally attached to this thing. Keith, just rip it off!” 

“Don’t rip it off! It’s not a freaking band aid!” Lance exclaimed.

“But she just told me to! What the heck do you want me to do?!” Keith cried in frustration.

“What the quiznak is going on?” Rinya asked.

“Hey there Rinya! It’s good to see you, y’know, not passed out.” Lance said with an awkward smile, it appeared that he was still a bit scared of her since she had punched him a while ago. Rinya nodded in response

“It’s good to be back. Now can someone tell me what happened while I was out?”

“This thing here attacked Abby and we can’t get it off. Keith and Lance have been trying for a while now but nothing’s working,” Dulcet explained.

“Uh guys? I think I might be infected with Space Rabies, my arm’s starting to feel weird.”

“You do not have Space Rabies.” The Red Paladin rolled his eyes. “Rinya, can you give me a hand here and help me pull this thing off?”

“Sure.” She said. But as soon as the red core stepped closer to help, the creature suddenly let go of it’s hostage arm and landed gracefully on the floor. Abby gasped in pain and immediately clutched her wounded arm, which had started to bleed again.

“What the heck?” Dulcet muttered under her breath.

Then, the animal jumped towards Rinya, who somehow managed to catch it in the air before it landed on her. She was now at eye level with the creature, she found that she couldn’t tear her gaze away from those beautiful green eyes that was staring right back at her. A strange energy that felt similar to static electricity crackled between them. Then, a bright flash of light appeared out of nowhere, blinding the Altean. But just as soon as the light appeared, it vanished.

Rinya blinked back the spots that danced in her vision before once again returning her focus to the creature. It was strange, all of a sudden she could just tell things about it just from looking. She could tell that the animal was male, and that it was fairly young for its species. It’s sea-foam green eyes that seemed so unreadable before now seemed to convey feelings of respect and affection. Just having the creature nearby made Rinya feel safe and warm, as if it’s very presence was a blanket wrapping around her body, protecting her from anything that could hurt her. The core was so mesmerized she almost didn’t notice that a sea-foam green diamond shape had appeared on its forehead.

“Uh...what just happened?” Lance asked cautiously. Rinya had no idea how to respond, she could feel everyone staring at her and her new friend, it made her slightly uncomfortable.

“Fascinating.” Coran marveled. “I never thought I’d ever see an imprinting in person. Congratulations Rinya.”

“Wait what?! Imprint? What the quiznak does that even mean? What even is this thing?!” Rinya exclaimed, still holding the creature which was now nuzzling her and making a weird purring noise. 

“That, my dear, is a Caloitis, and quite a young one given its current size. These creatures have the ability to bind themselves and create an unbreakable link to any one person or thing they wish to protect.” The elder Altean explained 

“Though it’s quite unusual that she imprinted on you immediately, perhaps she saw something in you that she thinks is worth protecting. Either way, it seems as though you two are stuck together.”

“Oh, so that’s what that was. By the way uncle, the Caloitis is a he.” 

“Okay...so what are the side-effects of imprinting?” Dulcet asked

“Well, according to the castle archives there could be many side-effects, it simply depends on the kind of relationship the Caloitis has with the being it imprinted on.” Allura said as she brought up a holographic file in front of her. 

“It says here that it’s common for the imprinted pair to be able to read each other's thoughts and communicate. It also says that you’ll be able to sense where the other is no matter how far apart you two may be. After that it is uncertain. Again, it depends on your relationship.”

“Well, I can’t exactly read this guy's’ thoughts but I can sorta tell what he’s feeling right now.” said Rinya.

“And what’s that?” Elise asked.

“I think he’s...happy? I don’t know for sure, this is all very new to me. I’m pretty sure he’s hungry though.”

“How can he be hungry after biting a chunk of my arm off?!” Abby exclaimed accusingly.

“Abby, stop waving your arms around, you’re getting blood on my armor.” said Lance.

“That’s what you care about?!” Keith growled

“I’m concerned about her health too, but I was just saying.”

“Guys, we have more important things to do than fighting, like getting Abby and Elise into healing pods and playing with Rinya’s new pet.” Hunk said.

“Good idea.” Dulcet agreed.

“After you do that, I need all of you guys to come over here, I found something in Shiro’s arm.” Pidge hollered. 

Rinya watched quietly as her two friends got into their healing pods. Abby didn’t hesitate and was immediately on board with getting in the strange mechanism. Elise however, was hesitant. Just as she was about to step in, her expression changed, as if a thought had just dawned on her. The green core then turned to face Rinya and spoke.

“Before I go into this magic machine, I need to ask you something. Do you know what this is?” Elise then outstretched her arm, cupping nothing but thin air into her hand. Then, there was a small, bright green flash surrounding her hand that vanished almost as fast as it appeared. Elise was now holding a small, white baton with green glowing bands on its ends.

“Wow, you got your Protea already? Good for you Elise!” Rinya whistled in admiration. “I only got mine back recently.”

“Protea? What’s that?” Elise tilted her head in confusion.

“It’s basically a core’s Bayard, you only get it when you have a strong bond with your lion. You must of done something amazing for the Green Lion to give you your Protea so quickly!” Allura beamed

“So these Proteas transform like our Bayards?” Keith asked. “So what does yours look like?”

“Well…” Elise trailed off, the core concentrated on the device in her hand before is flashed green again, once the light faded, the same crossbow she had used before had appeared in her hand.

“Awesome, a crossbow! That’s so sweet!” Lance said excitedly.

“Yeah, except that I’ve never even used one before.” Elise rolled her eyes. “Well, except for that one time where I almost died.”

“You’ll learn.” Rinya assured her.

“That’s just great. Rinya gets a new pet, Elise gets a badass weapon, and I get a chunk of my arm bitten off!” Abby complained.

“Oh shut up and get into the pod.” Dulcet scolded.

Rinya couldn’t help but laugh, it felt good to be back again. Too bad she couldn’t get more of a break before all hell broke loose again.

**Author's Note:**

> This au has an ask blog here:  
> https://ask-the-cores.tumblr.com/  
> Feel free to ask the cores questions  
> Also if you've read this far, please leave a comment to let us know what you think


End file.
